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Let’s see, what are some of potential charges Rudy Giuliani is now facing …
Bribery, conspiracy, counterintelligence concerns, funneling foreign dollars to Republican campaigns — just for starters …
by Chris Strohm and Jordan Fabian, Bloomberg — Nov 14, 2019
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The probe of Giuliani, which one official said could also include possible charges on violating laws against bribing foreign officials or conspiracy, presents a serious threat to Trump’s presidency from a man that former national security adviser John Bolton has called a “hand grenade.”
A second official said Giuliani’s activities raise counterintelligence concerns as well, although there probably wouldn’t be a criminal charge related to that. The officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, provided the first indication of the potential charges under investigation.
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Giuliani is under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which he once led. The office began to scrutinize his activities in Ukraine as prosecutors investigated two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. The two were subsequently charged in the U.S. with illegally funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to U.S. officials and a political action committee that backed Trump.
There is some debate, who is working for whom, in this “secret mission” trio:
"Mr. Parnas at all times believed that he was acting only on behalf of the President, as directed by his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and never on behalf of any Ukrainian officials,” Parnas’s attorney told CNN.
But the real question is who is the deep-pockets “Russian businessman” that has been funding their nefarious back-channel “persuasion” roadshow? (And how many more US Laws were broken in by these efforts?)
Exclusive: Trump lawyer Giuliani was paid $500,000 to consult on indicted associate's firm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was paid $500,000 for work he did for a company co-founded by the Ukrainian-American businessman arrested last week on campaign finance charges, Giuliani told Reuters on Monday.
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According to an indictment unsealed by U.S. prosecutors, an unidentified Russian businessman arranged for two $500,000 wires to be sent from foreign bank accounts to a U.S. account controlled by Fruman in September and October 2018. The money was used, in part, by Fruman, Parnas and two other men charged in the indictment to gain influence with U.S. politicians and candidates, the indictment said.
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As we learned in Yovanovitch’s testimony two days ago, Rudy was actively promoting “fake news” and anti-Ukraine conspiracy theories — in order to remove the “roadblock” in their way. Namely the anti-corruption advocate and US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.
Yovanovitch then discussed Lutsenko. She first heard from Ukrainian officials at the end of 2018 that Lutsenko was in communication with Giuliani. She had an impression that Lutsenko was discussing this freely. She noted that Lutsenko is a politician and was allied with former President Petro Poroshenko but is not a lawyer. Lutsenko was brought in to reform the Prosecutor General’s Office but was not successful in cleaning up the corruption within the office. [...]
Lutsenko and Giuliani had a number of meetings, and Lutsenko was looking to hurt Yovanovitch in the U.S., but she did not understand why. Much of what she learned was from the press and media, as well as from other officials she talked to in Ukraine. Around February 2019, she spoke to Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, who said she “really needed to watch [her] back.” He described Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman as setting up meetings for Giuliani with Lutsenko and said that they wanted a different ambassador to support their business interests. She thought this was “exceedingly strange” but clearly did not understand the full circumstances. Additionally, she knew that Giuliani was promoting investigations related to Manafort, and Joe Biden and Burisma, but again reiterated that she did not understand the full circumstances. When she reported the conversation back to the department, nobody quite understood what was going on.
www.lawfareblog.com
The pro-Russia official who provided the fake stories against the Yovanovitch, later retracted them. However, Giuliani who had his own “political agenda” did not care — he ran with the discredit stories. Ultimately using them to convince Trump to fire her.
There is a corroborating on-the-ground witness of that “back channel” character destruction effort. From the recently released statement of another State Dept Officer, stationed in Ukraine, David Holmes:
Our efforts on this third pillar merit special mention because it was during Ambassador Yovanovitch's tenure that we achieved the hard-fought passage of law establishing an independent anti-corruption court to try corruption cases brought by the National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU), another independent institution established with U.S. support.
These efforts strained Ambassador Yovanovitch's relationship with President Poroshenko and some of this allies, including Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, who resisted fully empowering truly independent anti-corruption institutions that would help ensure that no Ukrainians, however powerful, were above the law. However, the Ambassador and the Embassy kept pushing anti-corruption and the other pillars of our policy toward Ukraine.
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Beginning in March 2019, the situation at the Embassy and in Ukraine changed dramatically. Specifically, our diplomatic policy that had been focused on supporting Ukrainian democratic reform and resistance to Russian aggression became overshadowed by a political agenda being promoted by Rudy Giuliani and cadre of officials operating with a direct channel to the White House.
That change began with the emergence of press reports critical of Ambassador Yovanovitch and machinations by Mr. Lutsenko and others to discredit her. In mid-March 2019, an Embassy colleague learned from a Ukrainian colleague that Mr. Lutsenko had complained that Ambassador Yovanovitch had "destroyed him" with her refusal to support him until he followed through with his reform commitment and ceased using his position for personal gain. In retaliation, Mr. Lutsenko made a series of unsupported allegations against Ambassador Yovanovitch, mostly suggesting that Ambassador Yovanovitch improperly used the Embassy to advance the Democrats' political interests. [...]
Embassy colleagues also heard from a reporter that Mr. Lutsenko had made additional unsupported claims against Ambassador Yovanovitch, including that she had allegedly given him a "do not prosecute list" containing the names of her supposed allies, an allegation that the State Department called an "outright fabrication," and that Mr. Lutsenko later retracted. [...]
Of course, participating in the ousting of a dedicated anti-corruption Ambassador, was simply a necessary prerequisite — if Rudy and company were ultimately succeed with their Ukrainian political (and personal business) agendas. Because as Yonvanovitch also admitted, she would have stood against Rudy’s dubunked “diplomatic goals” in Ukraine, with respect to the Bidens. And against any corrupt business activities they might have been pursuing, as well.
Life-long public servant, Bill Taylor summarized the Giuliani’s “irregular channel” efforts this way, in his congressional testimony:
Daniel Goldman: (01:58)
When you reference help with a political campaign and it’s in this text message, what did you mean?
Bill Taylor: (02:04)
I meant that the investigation of Burisma and the Bidens was clearly identified by Mr. Giuliani in public four months [sic] as a way to get information on the two Bidens.
Daniel Goldman: (02:25)
And that investigation at the very least was mentioned by president Trump in the July 25th phone call with President Zelensky, is that right?
Bill Taylor: (02:34)
As we now know? Yes. On September 25th, that transcript was released.
Daniel Goldman: (02:40)
Ambassador Taylor, in your decades of military service and diplomatic service representing the United States around the world, have you ever seen another example of foreign aid conditioned on the personal or political interests of the president of the United States?
Bill Taylor: (02:59)
No. Mr Goldman, I’ve not.
According to this testimony Rudy’s mission was to make clear to Ukrainian Officials that their “foreign aid [was] conditioned on the personal or political interests of the president of the United States”.
That was one ‘mission’ that Rudy Giuliani should have probably declined to accept. Before his shady-shabby career self-destructed.
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BUT … as the “Butt-Dialer-for-Dollars” Giuliani has inadvertently made clear — if there is a 100-grand is to be made — he’s your guy. The Law is no obstacle. “Regular official channels” — not a problem either.
Rudy knows a guy with some serious pull.
Afterall, a washed-up ‘criminal’ lawyer has still got to make a living somehow … by hook or by crook:
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether Giuliani would personally profit from a natural gas business and pipeline from Poland to Ukraine that was advanced by Parnas and Fruman. The two pitched the project to Ukraine officials and energy executives and said it had the Trump administration’s support, the newspaper reported.
Giuliani told the Journal that he had no knowledge of the energy company, and no personal interest in any business in Ukraine.
www.bloomberg.com — Nov 14, 2019
Riiiight Rudy … you keep telling yourself that. And anyone else that cares to listen.
Meanwhile, you won’t mind, if the real law-enforcement investigators, continue to do their jobs, will you?
And another thing, I wouldn’t be taking any unexpected one-way international flights any time soon, OK?
You can ask you pals Lev and Igor, how well that trick turned out for them ...
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