Washington (CNN) Energy Secretary Rick Perry said he spoke with President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani at the President's direction this spring about alleged Ukrainian corruption, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

In his first interview about the escalating Ukraine scandal , Perry told the Journal that, at Trump's direction, he called Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, seeking a better understanding of Trump's Ukraine concerns.

"And as I recall the conversation, he said, 'Look, the President is really concerned that there are people in Ukraine that tried to beat him during this presidential election,'" Perry said of his conversation with Giuliani. "'He thinks they're corrupt and ... that there are still people over there engaged that are absolutely corrupt.'"

Perry told the newspaper that Giuliani didn't make explicit demands on the call -- "Rudy didn't say they gotta do X, Y and Z" -- but did blame Ukraine for the Steele dossier about Trump's alleged ties to Russia, claimed the country had former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email server and linked Ukraine to unfounded evidence that helped send former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to prison.

"I don't know whether that was crap or what," Perry told the Journal, "but I'm just saying there were three things that he said. That's the reason the president doesn't trust these guys."

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