Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has told a reporter that he was deeply involved in the smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Giuliani spoke to The New Yorker’s Adam Entous as part of an extensive profile on Yuriy Lutsenko, the disgraced former prosecutor general of Ukraine who Giuliani spoke with as part of the recent TV endeavor he cooked up with One America News Network. The piece delves into how Lutsenko came to be accused of corruption in recent years, one of the most interesting portions being the web between Lutsenko, Giuliani, and Giuliani’s indicted associates: Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.

The profile explains that Lutsenko was seen as an anti-corruption crusader when he first became prosecutor general, but he became angry with the U.S. embassy when they asked him to back anti-corruption reforms and eventually suspected him of enabling Ukrainian corruption. Lutsenko railed against American diplomats, including Yovanovitch, when he spoke to Entous, and he eventually described his partnership with Giuliani by saying both of them believed they offered each other a “win-win” situation for their political interests.

Lutsenko wanted to meet with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to defend his reputation back in 2018, but he became irritated when he heard that Yovanovitch and others were trying to block that meeting. This eventually led to Lutsenko’s first meeting with Giuliani after Parnas offered to connect the two.

Giuliani was investigating multiple 2016 Ukraine conspiracy theories at the time, and when Lutsenko met him at his office, the ex-prosecutor general provided financial documents he claimed was proof that Burisma hired Hunter Biden for the purpose of lobbying his father, the former vice president.

In his conversation with Entous on this subject, the former NYC mayor made an interesting admission:

In a long conversation with me this past November, Giuliani largely confirmed Lutsenko’s account of their relationship. He, too, saw Yovanovitch as an obstacle, hindering his attempt to dig up dirt against his client’s rival in advance of the 2020 election. “I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,” he said. “She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.” Giuliani compiled a dossier on the Bidens and Yovanovitch, which he sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and which was shared with the F.B.I. and with me. John Solomon, a journalist, had interviewed Lutsenko for the Washington-based publication The Hill. Giuliani promoted the project. “I said, ‘John, let’s make this as prominent as possible,’ ” Giuliani told me. “ ‘I’ll go on TV. You go on TV. You do columns.’ ”

So far, Lutsenko has not met Attorney General William Barr, and he didn’t announce a Ukrainian investigation of the Biden family despite thinking that’s what Giuliani wanted him to do.

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]