Democrats denounced a plan by President Trump's personal attorney to push Ukraine to open investigations that he hopes could benefit Mr. Trump politically, decrying it as an overt attempt to recruit foreign help to influence a U.S. election. But Rudy Giuliani said late Friday he does not plan to go to Ukraine because of concerns about who he would be dealing with there.

Giuliani told told Fox News Friday night he was not going to go because he thinks he would be "walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president ... in some cases enemies of the United States."

His comments marked a reversal of his plans to travel to the country, which were first reported by The New York Times on Thursday. He had told the publication he planned to ask Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to look into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden's son's past connections to the country.

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He said it was his right to travel to Ukraine to "defend" his client -- to try to push for investigations that he thinks could be "very helpful" to the president.

He used Twitter on Friday to explain his rationale, writing to Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy to "explain to me why Biden shouldn't be investigated" and accused Democrats of "interfering."

His statement later on Friday left many unanswered questions about what Giuliani might do about his Ukraine concerns.

CBS News' Emily Tillett contributed to this report.