Giuliani pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden
family, new transcript reveals
‘Get someone to investigate this,’ Giuliani tells two
Ukrainian officials in 40-minute call obtained by Time magazine
Julian
Borger in Washington
Wed 10 Feb
2021 17.55 GMT
A new
transcript has surfaced of the former Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, putting pressure
on the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into the Biden family.
The
transcript of a 40-minute call between Giuliani and two Ukrainian officials,
was obtained by Time magazine, and served as a reminder of Donald Trump’s first
impeachment trial, even as his second is under way in the Senate.
The trigger
for the first impeachment was a call Trump made to the Ukrainian president,
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which he hinted US military aid might depend on
Zelenskiy’s willingness to “do us a favour” and launch an investigation that
might cloud the image of Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who was on the
board of an Ukrainian energy company.
In both
impeachment trials, Trump is accused of using the power of the presidency in an
attempt to secure a second term. The charge against him has escalated from
improper pressure on a foreign government to inciting an insurrection, but
Republican senators are expected to save him from conviction this time as they
did in the first trial a year ago.
Giuliani’s
call to the Ukrainian officials came three days before Trump’s, on 22 July
2019, to two Zelenskiy aides. One of them, Igor Novikov, sent the transcript to
Time earlier this month.
“Let these
investigations go forward,” Giuliani told them, according to the transcript,
which Time said it has verified. “Get someone to investigate this.”
The former
New York mayor is more restrained in his language than Trump. According to the
transcript, he does not make overt threats but repeatedly warned the Ukrainians
“to be careful”.
“For our
country’s sake and your country’s sake, we [need to] get all these facts
straight,” Giuliani added. “We fix them and we put it behind us.”
The
Zelenskiy government resisted the pressure from the Trump administration, and
the transcript was supplied to Time as Kyiv seeks to build its relationship
with Biden.
Novikov has
said he will assist a federal investigation of Giuliani reported to be under
way in New York, as well as an effort to strip Giuliani of his license to
practice law.
“That is
because I believe Mayor Giuliani’s actions in Ukraine threatened our national
security,” Novikov told Time. He left the Zelenskiy administration in August
but has retained close ties. “It is our responsibility to make sure that any
effort to drag our country into our allies’ domestic politics does not go
unpunished.”
A lawyer
representing Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday
morning, and Time reported that Giuliani did not respond its own questions
about the transcript.
Last week,
President Zelenskiy shut down three Ukrainian media networks he accused of
spreading Russian propaganda, and which had played a role in the spreading of
groundless allegations about the Bidens during the US presidential campaign.
“The past
is the past,” President Zelenskiy told Time. “I care deeply about the future of
our relationship with the United States, so I want to focus on that.”
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