Now that he’s been acquitted, President Donald Trump is now free to finally admit that he did, in fact, send his lawyer to Ukraine after all.
Trump made the astonishing confession on Thursday during a podcast interview with Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera.
“Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer?” Rivera asked. “Are you sorry you did that?”
“Not at all,” Trump replied. “Rudy was a great crime fighter, you know that maybe better than anybody.”
The President said he had chosen to send Giuliani instead of an investigator from the intelligence community because he didn’t trust intelligence agencies, which he claimed (once again) had “spied” on his 2016 campaign.
And besides, Trump argued, other presidents “all had lawyers” who “do things for them.”
“And it’s really circumventing…but very legally, and maybe getting things done faster,” he said. “But Rudy is a high-quality guy who by the way has a treasure trove of information.”
Trump’s comments were a complete reversal of his previous claim that he hadn’t ordered Giuliani to go to Ukraine, despite Trump asking Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to speak to his lawyer in July. Trump has also denied knowing about what his lawyer was up to in the Eastern European country.
“Well, you have to ask that to Rudy,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly in November when the conservative radio host asked what Giuliani was doing in Ukraine on his behalf. “But Rudy…I don’t even know…I know he was going to go to Ukraine and I think he cancelled the trip.”
Trump then suggested that Giuliani was working in Ukraine for a different client, saying that “Rudy has other clients other than me.”
“So you didn’t direct him to go there on your behalf?” O’Reilly asked.
“No,” Trump replied.
Giuliani had traveled to Ukraine in an effort to dig up dirt on 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden, an operation that became central to Trump’s impeachment after the President withheld congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine while pressuring Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden.
