
The president’s attorney Rudy Giuliani told The New York Times this week that the Trump administration is “meddling” in Ukraine’s investigations.
“We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani said during an interview on Thursday.
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Giuliani’s admission comes as he prepares for a trip to Kiev to lobby for an investigation into whether the Ukrainian government aided former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by releasing opposition research related to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The president’s attorney added he will also inquire into the business dealings between one of former Vice President Joe Biden’s sons and a gas company owned by a Russian oligarch—which, according to Giuliani, could influence the 2020 election, given Biden’s status as the current Democratic frontrunner.
“I guarantee you: Joe Biden will not get to Election Day without this being investigated,” the president’s attorney told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham later on Thursday evening.
Despite fending off a two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Giuliani is confident that traveling to Ukraine to press its president-elect about Democratic figures like Clinton and Biden is not illegal, even though it could benefit the president’s reelection efforts.
“There’s nothing illegal about it,” Trump’s attorney told the Times. “Somebody could say it’s improper. And this isn’t foreign policy—I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop. And I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”