While Rudy Giuliani is working overtime flooding the media zone as Donald Trump's counsel, he continues to hustle foreign clients on the side that have a vested interest in U.S. policy. The Washington Post reports that Uncle Rudy still consults for clients in Brazil, Columbia, and Ukraine as well as foreign groups such as MEK, an Iranian resistance group tagged by the State Department as a terrorist organization as recently as 2012.
Still, Giuliani's never registered as a lobbyist with the U.S. government and believes he isn't required to since he's working pro bono for Trump. In other words, since he's not getting paid by Trump, conflicts of interest don't apply in his view.
Among the clients represented by Giuliani’s consulting firm is the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, whose mayor was a leading figure in Party of Regions, the Russia-friendly political party at the center of the federal conspiracy prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. His firm worked for the mayor in 2018 and is expected to work for him again later this year, Giuliani said in an interview.
Oh my, what are the chances? High, apparently, because everyone who's close to Trump has no more than one degree of separation from Russia. It's basically a rule. If you're not in with Russia, Trump isn't interested. Giuliani visited Ukraine last November in order to meet with representatives of Kharkiv and subsequently met with them again when a delegation traveled to New York in March. Within a month of that visit, Trump added Giuliani to his team of lawyers.
In the meantime, Uncle Rudy is sort of a jack of all trades for Trump, counseling him on personnel and routinely weighing in publicly on issues related to Iran, North Korea, and others that have nothing to do with the Russia probe. In other words, there’s no reason for him to be commenting on those things as Trump’s lawyer—unless there is, of course.
Reporters should simply make a list of high-level Trump associates who aren't enmeshed with Russia—it would be shorter and easier to remember than the list of those who are.