Paul Manafort’s decision to give Trump campaign polling data to Ukrainian associates with ties to Russian intelligence was “bad judgment” but not criminal and not as significant as some are making it out to be, the president’s lawyer said Sunday.

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the accidental revelation by Manafort’s attorneys that he shared polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked with Manafort as a political consultant in the Ukraine, was being overblown by people eager to accuse the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia to swing the 2016 election in the president’s favor.


The former Trump campaign chairman likely shared the data with Kilimnik because “he wanted to get paid,” Giuliani said, adding that Manafort had “a personal relationship with them, independent of the campaign.”

Manafort has been accused by special counsel Robert Mueller of lying about sharing that polling data with Kilimnik, who has ties to Russia’s central intelligence agency. Manafort faces up to 10 years in prison on bank and tax fraud convictions . He had become a cooperating witness for Mueller in his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but the relationship ended with prosecutors alleging the former Trump campaign chief kept lying to them.”

Giuliani said that while Manafort’s actions were inadvisable, they were legal and common among political insiders.

“Should he have done it? Absolutely not. Bad judgment? Yes. A crime? Sharing polling data? Give me a break. No way,” Giuliani said. “People give out that internal polling data to impress people. They give it out for fundraising, just to have people on your side. They give it out to affect you guys in the press.”


In the wide-ranging interview, Giuliani said Trump’s calls for prosecutors to go after the father-in-law of his former fixer Michael Cohen did not amount to witness intimidation, as some have alleged.

Cohen was sentenced last year to three years in prison for tax fraud, lying to Congress about work on a Trump real estate proposal in Russia and campaign finance violations that have implicated the president. Trump has repeatedly used television appearances and tweets to urge investigators to look into possible wrongdoing by Cohen’s father-in-law, and some have accused the president of attempting to intimidate Cohen, who is cooperating with Mueller.

Giuliani said that Trump was defending himself.

“If you made that obstruction [of justice], I can't defend anybody,” he said, saying Trump ising held to unfair standards. “We are so distorting the system of justice just to get Donald Trump.”