Newly exposed Giuliani recordings offer a window into his pro-Trump backroom dealings
Things aren’t getting any easier for Rudy Giuliani.
While the former NYC mayor and attorney for former president Donald Trump may have gone relatively quiet after his home and office were raided by the FBI to commandeer his electronic communications devices, an audio recording of one of his calls with a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from July of 2019 has surfaced thanks to CNN and put his pressure campaign on the foreign leader back in the headlines again.
The recording is of an approximately 40-minute call between Giuliani, US diplomat Kurt Volker, and Andriy Yermak, the Zelensky advisor, and it demonstrates how Giuliani’s efforts to convince the Ukraine government to publicly announce a major corruption investigation into Joe Biden during the 2020 election campaign season was based on pressuring the former Soviet state to accept a series of outright lies.
“All we need from the President [Zelensky] is to say, I’m gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he’s gonna investigate and dig up the evidence, that presently exists and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out,” Giuliani said, according to the recording. “… Somebody in Ukraine’s gotta take that seriously.”
Bypassing normal diplomatic channels to exert maximum pressure on Ukraine, Giuliani’s conversation pressuring the Zelensky advisor proves just how false Donald Trump’s endless claims that there was no “quid pro quo” in his later conversation with President Zelensky — the phone call that led to his first impeachment trial — truly were.
“Over and over, Giuliani pressed for the investigations, according to the audio recording. Giuliani even said the US-Ukraine diplomatic relationship would improve if Zelensky launched the probes. Giuliani and Volker suggested during the call that a public announcement could clear the way for Zelensky’s much-desired visit to the US, or for in-person meetings with Giuliani,” CNN writes.
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With Giuliani now the acknowleged subject of a criminal investigation of his conduct in Ukraine that focuses on his potential violation of foreign lobbyist laws, the newluy revealed audio obtained by CNN is likely only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the evidence that the FBI has gathered after accessing the former Trump lawyer’s mobile phones and computers.
You can get the full details of the recording in CNN’s article about the newly revealed tape right here.
Never-before-heard audio, obtained exclusively by CNN, shows how Rudy Giuliani relentlessly pressured and coaxed the Ukrainian government in 2019 to investigate baseless conspiracies about then-candidate Joe Biden https://t.co/xNxbGNJU82
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 7, 2021
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Original reporting by Matthew Chance and Marshall Cohen at CNN.
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