Federal prosecutors are investigating whether current and former Ukrainian officials unlawfully interfered in the U.S. presidential electi...
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether current and former Ukrainian officials unlawfully interfered in the U.S. presidential election by using Rudy Giuliani to spread misleading claims about Joe Biden.
The New York Times broke the news about the probe on Thursday, citing several people with inside information on the matter.
The criminal investigation, which began during the final months of the Trump administration, is being handled by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.
The inquiry is separate from an ongoing criminal investigation into Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, the newspaper reported.
Giuliani worked as President Donald Trump's personal lawyer while he was still in the Oval Office.
Giuliani - who was pictured out in New York City with his rumored girlfriend Maria Ryan on Thursday - has denied any wrongdoing.
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether current and former Ukrainian officials unlawfully interfered in the U.S. presidential election by using Rudy Giuliani to spread misleading claims about Joe Biden. Giuliani worked as President Donald Trump's personal lawyer while he was still in the Oval Office. They are pictured together in 2016
Giuliani - who was pictured out in New York City on Thursday - has denied any wrongdoing
Giuliani is pictured with Andriy Derkach - a Ukrainian member of parliament named
Sources told The New York Times that investigators have examined a trip Giuliani took to Ukraine back in December 2019.
One of the officials Giuliani met while there is a member of parliament named Andriy Derkach.
The U.S. Treasury Department previously sanctioned Derkach, identifying him as an 'active Russian agent for over a decade.'
In January, the Department also placed sanctions against seven Ukrainians alleged to be a part of Derkach's inner circle.
They included Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian government official who is said to have worked closely with Giuliani to provide him with damaging information about Biden.
Giuliani has denied he was warned by US officials about Derkach's status as a Russian agent.
In a statement, Giuliani's lawyer, Robert J. Costello, defended the meeting with Derkach, saying: 'When you investigate allegations of corruption, you talk to all sorts of people; some are credible, and some are not'.
The federal probe is 'not a typical criminal case', according to The New York Times, because 'inquiries into foreign influence operations are generally conducted by F.B.I. counterintelligence agents' and not prosecutors.
It would also be difficult to extradite Ukrainians to the United States should any of them be charged with election meddling.
Giuliani is not the specific subject of the investigation, which is focused instead on how he may have been used by Ukrainian officials.
It's the latest in a line of scandals for the former mayor of New York.
Earlier this week, his lawyers tried to end a lawsuit brought by 11 Democrats in Washington accusing him of violating the federal Ku Klux Klan Act on Jan. 6 by inciting a mob of Trump supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol.
The embattled former Mayor of New York was seen out with his rumored girlfriend Maria Ryan on Thursday
Giuliani braved a smile despite news of the new investigation into whether he was used by Ukrainian officials to meddle in the 2020 election
In a new legal filing, his lawyer said Giuliani's comments during a rally that day were protected under the First Amendment.
And his accusers had failed to deliver evidence to support their allegation that Giuliani plotted with Trump and extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to trigger an insurrection, wrote attorney Joseph Sibley.
'This conspiracy theory is far more fantastical than any of the allegations of election fraud that plaintiffs claim incited the Capitol riot,' he added in a motion to dismiss the case.
'In their complaint, plaintiffs do nothing other than make the conclusory assertion that the defendants “coordinated, and executed a common plan” to engage in the conspiratorial conduct complained of.'
Their case lacks the 'who, what, where, when' needed to prove any 'meeting of the minds' occurred, he continued.
An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021.
The former New York mayor was central to Trump's efforts to overturn the results of last year's election.
And he was one of the speakers at the Stop the Steal rally of Trump supporters that preceded the riot.
'Over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent, and if we're wrong, we will be made fools of, he said.
'But if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail.
'So, let's have trial by combat.'
That amounted to incitement to violence, according to the suit brought by Rep. Bennie Thompson and 10 House Democrats.
They accused Trump and Giuliani of launching a 'concerted campaign to misinform their supporters and the public, encouraging and promoting intimidation and violence in furtherance of their common plan to promote the re-election of Defendant Trump, even after the states had certified election results decisively showing he lost the election.'
But Giuliani's lawyer said the speech was clearly 'hyperbolic' and referred to a future courtroom clash rather than a literal trial by combat.
'No reasonable reader or listener would have perceived Giuliani’s speech as an instruction to march to the Capitol, violently breach the perimeter and enter the Capitol building, and then violently terrorize Congress into not engaging in the electoral certification,' he wrote.
No comments