The man once called America’s mayor has become the loosest of cannons, embroiling his boss in an election-meddling furore

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

On Thursday night, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and troubleshooter-in-chief, went on CNN to defend his boss against the latest scandal swirling round him.

Rudy Giuliani's quest for dirt on Biden via Ukraine – a timeline Read more

Hours before Giuliani went on air, it had been reported that Trump had provoked a whistleblower complaint within the US intelligence services by pressuring the government of Ukraine to provide dirt that could help his bid for re-election. The information is thought to have related to Trump’s main presidential rival, the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.

A few minutes into the interview, pugnacious anchor Chris Cuomo got to the point.

Cuomo: “Did you ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?”

Giuliani: “No. Actually I didn’t.”

Crystal clear. Except that 83 words and about 30 seconds later, Cuomo asked the question again.

Cuomo: “So, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?”

Giuliani: “Of course I did.”

That Giuliani was prepared so blatantly to contradict himself on live TV in the service of the president perfectly encapsulates his transformation. “America’s mayor”, the hero of 9/11, has metamorphosed into what the New Yorker dubbed “Trump’s clown”.

This is not the first time Giuliani has incurred ridicule and rebuke in the cause of protecting his longtime friend – no, client. In the final days of the 2016 election the lawyer was almost the only person willing to speak in favor of Trump after the “grab ’em by the pussy” tape was aired.

As the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in that election reached its climax, Giuliani threw lawyerly restraint to the winds and repeatedly denounced the inquiry as a witch-hunt. Last August, he uttered words that will forever haunt him: “Truth isn’t truth.”

But of all the scraps in which Giuliani has engaged in recent months, of all the obfuscations and verbal sleights of hand, this week’s performance could prove the most damaging, both for him and for his White House buddy. America’s Mayor has tied himself in ever-tighter knots over claims that at Trump’s behest he improperly sought to coerce Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden in the hope of dredging up damaging information.

No fewer than three House committees this week launched investigations into the Trump-Giuliani efforts in Ukraine. Though not yet on the scale of Mueller’s inquiry into whether Trump colluded with Russia, the new uproar bears chilling echoes of it.

At the heart of the row is the whistleblower complaint that was raised by an intelligence official on 12 August. Exactly what that complaint says is not yet known, but details have emerged that point the spotlight squarely at Ukraine.

Reporting led by the Washington Post suggests the unnamed official was so alarmed by Trump’s “communications with a foreign leader” – now thought to be Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy – that he or she considered it a matter of “urgent concern”.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal disclosed devastating new details of a phone conversation between Trump and Zelenskiy on 25 July. The paper reported that Trump pressed “about eight times” for his opposite number to look into work in the country by Biden’s son Hunter.

And, the Journal wrote, Trump explicitly urged Zelenskiy to work with one person in forwarding the mission: Rudy Giuliani.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump is reported to have pressed the Ukrainian president ‘about eight times’ to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

That Trump would be willing to attract further legal scrutiny just months after Mueller wrapped up his work, by inviting yet another foreign government to assist him in a presidential election campaign, is profoundly puzzling. After all, he partly brought the Mueller inquiry down upon his own head by inviting Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails in July 2016.

But if Trump’s actions are peculiar, they are nothing compared with Giuliani’s. For the past five months he has been telling anyone prepared to listen about his attempts to enlist Ukraine as a partner in Trump’s re-election.

Giuliani began thumping the Ukraine theme in April, when he laid out his theory – some would say, conspiracy theory – on Fox News. He accused the former vice-president of using bribery to shield his son from legal peril relating to business activities in the eastern European country.

Specifically, Giuliani alleged that Biden leant on a former Ukraine president to fire a top prosecutor who had been investigating corruption within a gas company on whose board Hunter Biden then served.

A week after Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign, Giuliani blabbed to the New York Times that he had discussed the issue of the Bidens and Ukraine with Trump on “multiple occasions”. He also divulged that he planned to make a trip to Kyiv to meet the Ukrainian president.

Under US law, it is categorically illegal for anybody to solicit the help of any foreign national – let alone a government – for a US election. Yet here was Giuliani blithely telling the same newspaper a week later his visit to Kyiv was intended to kickstart an investigation into the Bidens that could be helpful in next year’s presidential race.

“There’s nothing illegal about it,” he told the Times. “Somebody could say it’s improper … That information will be very, very helpful to my client.”

Giuliani cancelled his Kyiv trip. Instead, he travelled to Madrid in August, where he met a top Ukrainian official whom he “strongly urged” to reopen the investigation into the Bidens.

Perhaps most incendiary of all are suggestions Trump and Giuliani may have tried to encourage the Ukraine government to play ball by invoking US aid to the country.

“The potentially most explosive issue here is whether the president essentially offered Ukraine a quid pro quo,” said Richard Pildes, professor of constitutional law at New York University.

“‘I’ll provide substantial US foreign aid if you provide damaging information concerning Joe Biden or his son.’”

• This article was amended on 1 October 2019 to correct the spelling of Kyiv.