President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, will make a report to Congress and the attorney general on the findings from his recent meetings with former Ukrainian officials, according to the president.
“Well, I just know he came back from someplace, and he’s going to make a report—I think—to the Attorney General and to Congress,” Trump said outside the White House on Dec. 7 in response to a question about Giuliani’s trip to Europe. “He says he has a lot of good information. I have not spoken to him about that information.”
Giuliani traveled to Kiev, Ukraine, and Brussels, Belgium, early this month and met and interviewed several former Ukrainian officials, including former Prosecutors-General Yuriy Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin, and Ukrainian political consultant Andrii Telizhenko. Shokin, Lutsenko, and Telizhenko have previously alleged misconduct by Obama-administration officials, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
Giuliani alleged on Twitter on Dec. 6 that $5.3 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine was misused, with much of the money going to non-governmental organizations favored by the U.S. embassy. According to Giuliani, the U.S. embassy, which at the time was led by Yovanovitch, directed Ukrainian officials not to pursue an investigation of the misuse.
That State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
“Much of the $5.3B in US Aid Ukraine reported as misused was given to the embassy’s favored NGO’s. At the time Yovanovitch, witness for the Witchunt, was the Amb. That embassy directed the police not to investigate,” Giuliani said.
Shocking disclosure:
Much of the $5.3B in US Aid Ukraine reported as misused was given to the embassy’s favored NGO’s.
At the time Yovanovitch, witness for the Witchunt, was the Amb. That embassy directed the police not to investigate.
Wonder why Obama forgot Art. 2, Sec. 3.
— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) December 6, 2019
Giuliani did not offer any evidence for his claim. The day before, he wrote that the misuse was discovered by the “Accounts Chamber” in Ukraine, an apparent reference to Ukraine’s Accounting Chamber. The Accounting Chamber is an audit body for Ukraine’s parliament and acts as a watchdog over the state budget.
Trump removed Yovanovitch from her post in May. She returned to the United States on the day Ukraine inaugurated its newly-elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky. During a July 25 call at the center of the impeachment inquiry, Trump and Zelensky spoke of Yovanovitch in a negative light.
On the call, Trump also asked Zelensky to “look into” the firing of Shokin, who served as the Ukrainian Prosecutor General until March 2016. Shokin was forced to resign weeks after his office seized the assets of Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that paid Hunter Biden to serve on its board of directors. Joe Biden, Hunter Biden’s father, has bragged about forcing Shokin’s ouster by withholding $1 billion in loan guarantees from Ukraine.
Democrats allege that Trump’s request amounted to soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Dec. 5 directed the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), to draft the articles of impeachment against Trump.
Pelosi made the announcement shortly after the Democrats from three House committees released a 300-page summary of their investigation. The report alleges that Trump abused “the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.” The evidence to support the allegation consists entirely of hearsay and presumptions, according to a report prepared by House Republicans.
During the trip, Giuliani filmed several interviews with the former Ukrainian officials for a documentary by the One America News (OAN) network. The channel aired the exclusive interviews on Dec. 7 and 8. OAN claims its program debunks the Democrat narrative at the center of the impeachment proceedings.
A portion of Giuliani’s claim appears to refer to an allegation about Yovanovitch which was first reported by investigative journalist John Solomon. Citing a video interview with Lutsenko, the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Solomon reported that Yovanovitch gave Lutsenko a list of people who the Ukrainians should not prosecute. Yovanovitch and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine denied the claim.
Senior State Department official George Kent, one of the impeachment inquiry witnesses, told lawmakers that the U.S. embassy did push for certain groups and individuals to not be prosecuted. Kent also confirmed that he signed a letter which specifically warns against the prosecution of one of the groups on Yovanovitch’s “do not prosecute” list.
During the impeachment hearings, Democrats claimed that Lutsenko recanted his comments about the “do no prosecute” list. That claim relies on a report by a Ukrainian media outlet. The lawmakers did not mention that in subsequent interviews with Solomon and the New York Times, Lutsenko stood by his allegation that Yovanovitch pushed against the prosecution of certain groups and individuals.
One of the organizations on Yovanovitch list and in Kent’s letter is the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a group jointly funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars and a foundation belonging to billionaire financier George Soros.
In another message on Twitter, Giuliani suggested that a bilateral investigation of the misuse of funds would help bring the United States and Ukraine together.
“In reviewing my notes, it seems to me that a large scale joint investigation into Ukraine and the U.S. would uncover and recover billions stolen by crooks, from both countries, at the highest levels,” Giuliani said. “This would be the most effective way to bring our two countries together.”
The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment. Attorney General William Barr earlier this year appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate whether the surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016 was free of improper motives. As part of that investigation, Durham is looking into Ukraine’s involvement in the events which led to the FBI opening the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, according to the Justice Department.
From The Epoch Times
