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  Rudy Giuliani Was “Meddling in an Investigation” on Behalf of President Trump

  On May 7, 2019, Christopher Wray, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, testified before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies regarding foreign interference in U.S. elections:

  My view is that, if any public official or member of any campaign is contacted by any nation-state or anybody acting on behalf of a nation-state about influencing or interfering with our election, then that is something that the FBI would want to know about. 157

  Mr. Giuliani nonetheless pressed forward with his plan to personally convey to President-elect Zelensky, on behalf of his client President Trump, the importance of opening investigations that would assist President Trump’s reelection campaign.

  On the morning of May 8, Mr. Giuliani called the White House Switchboard and connected for six minutes and 26 seconds with someone at the White House.158 That same day, Mr. Giuliani also connected with Mr. Solomon for almost six minutes, with Mr. Parnas, and with Derek Harvey, a member of Representative Nunes’ staff on the Intelligence Committee.159

  During a meeting that same day, Ukraine Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov disclosed to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent that Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman would soon visit Kyiv “and that they were coming with their associate, the Mayor Giuliani.”160 Minister Avakov confided to Mr. Kent that “Mayor Giuliani had reached out to him and invited him to come and meet the group of them in Florida” in February 2019.161 Although he declined that offer, Minister Avakov indicated that he intended to accept their new invitation to meet in Kyiv.162

  The next day, on May 9, The New York Times publicized Mr. Giuliani’s plan to visit Ukraine.163 Mr. Giuliani confirmed that he planned to meet with President Zelensky and press the Ukrainians to pursue investigations that President Trump promoted only days earlier on Fox News.164 The New York Times described Mr. Giuliani’s planned trip as:

  [P]art of a monthslong effort by the former New York mayor and a small group of Trump allies working to build interest in the Ukrainian inquiries. Their motivation is to…undermine the case against Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman; and potentially to damage Mr. Biden, the early front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.165

  Mr. Giuliani claimed, “We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.”166

  Only a few days after Director Wray’s public comments about foreign interference in U.S. elections, Mr. Giuliani acknowledged that “[s]omebody could say it’s improper” to pressure Ukraine to open investigations that would benefit President Trump. But, Mr. Giuliani argued:

  [T]his 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.167

  Mr. Giuliani’s “client” was President Trump, as Mr. Giuliani repeatedly stated publicly. According to Mr. Giuliani, the President fully supported putting pressure on Ukraine to open investigations that would benefit his 2020 reelection campaign.168 Mr. Giuliani emphasized that President Trump “basically knows what I’m doing, sure, as his lawyer.”169 Underscoring his commitment to pressuring Ukraine until it opened the investigations President Trump promoted on Fox News, Mr. Giuliani told The Washington Post that he would “make sure that nothing scuttles the investigation that I want.”170

  On May 9, following public revelation of his trip by the New York Times, Mr. Giuliani connected in quick succession with Mr. Solomon and then Mr. Parnas for several minutes at a time.171 Mr. Giuliani then made brief connections with the White House Switchboard and Situation Room several times, before connecting at 1:43 p.m. Eastern Time with someone at the White House for over four minutes.172 He connected, separately, thereafter with Mr. Parnas several times in the afternoon and into the evening.173

  That evening, Mr. Giuliani tweeted:

  If you doubt there is media bias and corruption then when Democrats conspiring with Ukrainian officials comes out remember much of the press, except for Fox, the Hill, and NYT, has suppressed it. If it involved @realDonaldTrump or his son it would have been front page news for weeks.174

  Shortly thereafter, on the night of May 9, he made an appearance on Fox News and reiterated that his trip to Ukraine was intended to further the President’s personal and political interests by pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens:

  It’s a big story. It’s a dramatic story. And I guarantee you, Joe Biden will not get to election day without this being investigated, not because I want to see him investigated. This is collateral to what I was doing.175

  The next morning, on May 10, amidst the press coverage of his trip, Mr. Giuliani tweeted:

  Explain to me why Biden shouldn’t be investigated if his son got millions from a Russian loving crooked Ukrainian oligarch while He was VP and point man for Ukraine. Ukrainians are investigating and your fellow Dems are interfering. Election is 17 months away. Let’s answer it now176

  He then had another flurry of calls with Mr. Parnas. Shortly after 2:00 p.m., Eastern Time, Mr. Giuliani also spoke with Ambassador Volker on the phone. 177 Ambassador Volker had learned that Mr. Giuliani intended to travel to Ukraine “to pursue these allegations that Lutsenko had made, and he was going to investigate these things”—specifically, the debunked story that Vice President Biden had improperly pressured Ukraine to fire a corrupt prosecutor general, as well as the Russian-backed conspiracy that the Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.178 Ambassador Volker testified that he had a simple warning for Mr. Giuliani: Prosecutor General Lutsenko “is not credible. Don’t listen to what he is saying.”179 Call records obtained by the Committees reveal that their call lasted more than 30 minutes.180

  Call records also show that around midday on May 10, Mr. Giuliani began trading aborted calls with Kashyap “Kash” Patel, an official at the National Security Council who previously served on Ranking Member Devin Nunes’ staff on the Intelligence Committee. Mr. Patel successfully connected with Mr. Giuliani less than an hour after Mr. Giuliani’s call with Ambassador Volker. Beginning at 3:23 p.m., Eastern Time, Mr. Patel and Mr. Giuliani spoke for over 25 minutes.181 Five minutes after Mr. Patel and Mr. Giuliani disconnected, an unidentified “-1” number connected with Mr. Giuliani for over 17 minutes.182 Shortly thereafter, Mr. Giuliani spoke with Mr. Parnas for approximately 12 minutes.183

  That same afternoon, President Trump conducted a 15-minute long phone interview with Politico. In response to a question about Mr. Giuliani’s upcoming visit to Kyiv, the President replied, “I have not spoken to him at any great length, but I will…I will speak to him about it before he leaves.”184

  Recently, when asked what Mr. Giuliani was doing in Ukraine on his behalf, the President responded: “Well, you have to ask that to Rudy, but Rudy, I don’t, I don’t even know. I know he was going to go to Ukraine, and I think he canceled a trip.”185 Prior to that, on October 2, the President publicly stated; “And just so you know, we’ve been investigating, on a personal basis—through Rudy and others, lawyers—corruption in the 2016 election.”186 On October 4, the President publicly stated: “If we feel there’s corruption, like I feel there was in the 2016 campaign—there was tremendous corruption against me—if we feel there’s corruption, we have a right to go to a foreign country.”187

  By the evening of May 10, Mr. Giuliani appeared to have concerns about the incoming Ukrainian president. He appeared on Fox News and announced, “I’m not going to go” to Ukraine “because I think I’m walking into a group of people that are enemies of the President.”188 In a text message to Politico, Mr. Giuliani alleged the origi
nal offer for a meeting with Mr. Zelensky was a “set up” orchestrated by “several vocal critics” of President Trump who were advising President-elect Zelensky.189 Mr. Giuliani declared that President-elect Zelensky “is in [the] hands of avowed enemies of Pres[ident] Trump.”190

  Like Mr. Giuliani, President Trump would express hostility toward Ukraine in the days and weeks to come.

  Russian President Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Orban Counseled President Trump on Ukraine

  In early May, Mr. Giuliani was not the only person who conveyed his skepticism of Ukraine to President Trump. The President reportedly discussed Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they spoke by phone on May 3. President Trump posted on Twitter that he “[h]ad a long and very good conversation with President Putin of Russia” and discussed “even the ‘Russian Hoax’”—an apparent reference to the unanimous finding by the U.S. Intelligence Community that Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the aim of assisting President Trump’s candidacy.191 Mr. Kent subsequently heard from Dr. Hill, the NSC’s Senior Director for Europe and Russia, that President Putin also expressed negative views about Ukraine to President Trump. He testified that President Putin’s motivation in undercutting President-elect Zelensky was “very clear”:

  He denies the existence of Ukraine as a nation and a country, as he told President Bush in Bucharest in 2008. He invaded and occupied 7 percent of Ukraine’s territory and he’s led to the death of 13,000 Ukrainians on Ukrainian territory since 2014 as a result of aggression. So that’s his agenda, the agenda of creating a greater Russia and ensuring that Ukraine does not survive independently.192

  On May 13, President Trump met one-on-one for an hour with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. President Trump offered the leader a warm reception in the Oval Office and claimed Prime Minister Orban had “done a tremendous job in so many different ways. Highly respected. Respected all over Europe.”193 The European Union and many European leaders, however, have widely condemned Mr. Orban for undermining Hungary’s democratic institutions and promoting anti-Semitism and xenophobia.194

  Mr. Kent explained to the Committees that Prime Minister Orban’s “animus towards Ukraine is well-known, documented, and has lasted now two years.” Due to a dispute over the rights of 130,000 ethnic Hungarians who live in Ukraine, Kent noted that Prime Minister Orban “blocked all meetings in NATO with Ukraine at the ministerial level or above,” undercutting U.S. and European efforts to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.195 Nonetheless, President Trump told reporters prior to his meeting with Prime Minister Orban to not “forget they’re a member of NATO, and a very good member of NATO.”196

  Commenting on what Dr. Hill shared with him following the May 3 call and May 13 meeting, Mr. Kent said he understood President Trump’s discussions about Ukraine with President Putin and Prime Minister Orban “as being similar in tone and approach.” He explained that “both leaders” had “extensively talked Ukraine down, said it was corrupt, said Zelensky was in the thrall of oligarchs” the effect of which was “negatively shaping a picture of Ukraine, and even President Zelensky personally.”197 The veteran State Department diplomat concluded, “[T]hose two world leaders [Putin and Orban], along with former Mayor Giuliani, their communications with President Trump shaped the President’s view of Ukraine and Zelensky, and would account for the change from a very positive first call on April 21 to his negative assessment of Ukraine.”198

  President Trump Instructs Vice President Pence Not to Attend President Zelensky’s Inauguration

  On Monday, May 13, at approximately 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Ms. Williams received a call from an assistant to the Vice President’s chief of staff.199 President Trump, the assistant relayed, had “decided that the Vice President would not attend the inauguration in Ukraine,” despite the fact that Vice President Pence previously had accepted the invitation.200 Ms. Williams was never given a reason for the change in President Trump’s decision.201

  Mr. Holmes later testified that:

  [The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv had] gone back and forth with NSC staff about proposing a list of potential members of the delegation. It was initially quite a long list. We had asked who would be the senior [U.S.] member of that delegation. We were told that Vice President Pence was likely to be that senior member, it was not yet fully agreed to. And so we were anticipating that to be the case. And then the Giuliani event happened, and then we heard that he was not going to play that role.202

  Asked to clarify what he meant by “the Giuliani event,” Mr. Holmes replied, “the interview basically saying that he had planned to travel to Ukraine, but he canceled his trip because there were, quote, unquote, enemies of the U.S. President in Zelensky’s orbit.”203

  One of the individuals around President-elect Zelensky whom Mr. Giuliani publicly criticized was the oligarch Mr. Kolomoisky, who had refused to set up a meeting between Mr. Giuliani and President Zelensky. On May 18, Mr. Giuliani complained on Twitter that the oligarch “returned from a long exile and immediately threatened and defamed two Americans, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. They are my clients and I have advised them to press charges.”204

  Mr. Kolomoisky responded to Mr. Giuliani in a televised interview and declared, “Look, there is Giuliani, and two clowns, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were engaging in nonsense. They are Giuliani’s clients.” He added: “They came here and told us that they would organize a meeting with Zelensky. They allegedly struck a deal with [Prosecutor-General Yuriy] Lutsenko about the fate of this criminal case—Burisma, [former Vice President] Biden, meddling in the U.S. election and so on.”205 He warned that a “big scandal may break out, and not only in Ukraine, but in the United States. That is, it may turn out to be a clear conspiracy against Biden.”206

  Despite Ukraine’s significance to U.S. national security as a bulwark against Russian aggression and the renewed opportunity that President Zelensky’s administration offered for bringing Ukraine closer to the United States and Europe, President Trump did not ask Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, or National Security Advisor John Bolton to lead the delegation to President Zelensky’s inauguration. Instead, according to Mr. Holmes, the White House “ultimately whittled back an initial proposed list for the official delegation to the inauguration from over a dozen individuals to just five.”207

  Topping that list was Secretary Perry. Accompanying him were Ambassador Sondland, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Ambassador Volker, and NSC Director for Ukraine Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.208 Acting Deputy Chief of Mission (Chargé d’Affaires) of U.S. Embassy Kyiv Joseph Pennington joined the delegation, in place of outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. U.S. Senator Ron Johnson also attended the inauguration and joined several meetings with the presidential delegation. When asked if this delegation was “a good group,” Mr. Holmes replied that it “was not as senior a delegation as we [the U.S. embassy] might have expected.”209

  Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and Ambassador Sondland subsequently began to refer to themselves as the “Three Amigos.” During the delegation’s meeting with President Zelensky, Mr. Holmes recounted that “Secretary Perry passed President Zelensky a list of, quote, ‘people he trusts’ from whom Zelensky could seek advice on energy sector reform, which was the topic of subsequent meetings between Secretary Perry and key Ukrainian energy sector contacts, from which Embassy personnel were excluded by Secretary Perry’s staff.”210

  Mr. Holmes assessed that the delegation’s visit proceeded smoothly, although “at one point during a preliminary meeting of the inaugural delegation, someone in the group wondered aloud about why Mr. Giuliani was so active in the media with respect to Ukraine.”211 Ambassador Sondland responded: “Dammit, Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and effs everything up.” 212 Mr. Holmes added: “He used the ‘F’ word.”213

  By the time of the inaugu
ration, Mr. Holmes assessed that President Zelensky and the Ukrainians were already starting to feel pressure to conduct political investigations related to former Vice President Biden.214 Lt. Col. Vindman also was concerned about the potentially negative consequences of Mr. Giuliani’s political efforts on behalf of President Trump—both for U.S. national security and also Ukraine’s longstanding history of bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress.215

  During the U.S. delegation’s meeting with President Zelensky on the margins of the inauguration, Lt. Col. Vindman was the last person to speak.216 He “offered two pieces of advice” to President Zelensky. First, he advised the new leader, “be particularly cautious with regards to Russia, and its desire to provoke Ukraine.” 217 And second, Lt. Col. Vindman warned, “stay out of U.S. domestic…politics.” 218 Referencing the activities of Mr. Giuliani, Lt. Col Vindman explained:

  [I]n the March and April timeframe, it became clear that there were—there were actors in the U.S., public actors, nongovernmental actors that were promoting the idea of investigations and 2016 Ukrainian interference. And it was consistent with U.S. policy to advise any country, all the countries in my portfolio, any country in the world, to not participate in U.S. domestic politics. So I was passing the same advice consistent with U.S. policy.219

  U.S. Officials Briefed President Trump About their Positive Impressions of Ukraine