Donald Trump’s personal attorney is back in Kyiv. And this time Rudy Giuliani isn’t just trying to find down-and-out Ukrainians willing to lie about Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton; he’s there to set up a whole alternative “justice” system, one that connects crooked legislators in Ukraine with equally crooked legislators in the United States. It’s like a pipeline deal, where what’s flowing through the pipe is pure corruption.
In all the testimony that was heard in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry, there was one factor that came up over, and over, and over—Giuliani’s derailing of the normal diplomatic process and attempts to suborn lies to support Trump’s conspiracy theories. Witness after witness made it clear that Trump’s personal attorney was undercutting normal government channels, confusing Ukrainian officials, and deeply damaging efforts to deal with genuine corruption. So naturally, even as the House Judiciary Committee was conducting its first day of hearings on Trump’s impeachment, Giuliani was back in Ukraine … undercutting diplomats, confusing officials, and showing Ukrainians what real corruption looks like.
Back in May, Giuliani declared that he had someone ready to testify in support of Trump’s favorite conspiracies in the form of former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko. These claims became the centerpiece of an article in The New York Times and multiple scathing editorials from The Hill’s John Solomon. But Lutsenko was lying—and he admitted as much only days later.
But now, with his work out in the open and defended by the whole Republican Party, Giuliani isn’t just looking for liars—he’s looking to build a whole smear network. The Washington Post reports that Giuliani has connected to a group of former and current Ukrainian officials in an effort to create an entire anti-Biden “documentary” filled with any lies they can dream up. And this effort includes letters sent back to the United States to secure participation from “key Republicans”—including Lindsay Graham, Devin Nunes, and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Donald Trump’s personal attorney is openly, actively engaged in a conspiracy with foreign officials to generate propaganda to damage a candidate in a U.S. election. And he’s inviting Republican members of Congress and a White House official to join in.
Already, the Ukrainians who have teamed up with Giuliani are giving Trump what he wanted. Two members of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s single-body legislature, appeared in Kyiv last week to announce that the prosecutor general was opening a new investigation into Burisma Holdings, the company’s founder, and Hunter Biden, who served on the company’s board. On the other hand, the actual prosecutor general’s office made it clear that there were no such investigations either underway or planned.
But then, as was pointed up many times during the impeachment, Trump doesn’t care about an investigation. He just wants the announcement.
Giuliani is getting Trump exactly what he wanted—people willing to lie on camera, to support two conspiracy theories that not only justify Trump’s attacks on Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, but also exonerate Vladimir Putin. He’s doing this even as his former partners in this effort are stuck in the United States after being indicted on a whole raft of federal charges. He’s doing this because he, like Trump, is resting comfortably in thinking that he’s not just above the law, but completely outside it. That there is absolutely nothing he can do, no matter how blatant, that won’t be defended by the Republican Party. If he had any doubts, watching the Republican actions in the Wednesday impeachment hearing surely made him feel all better.