President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has said that Joe Biden committed bribery in his own dealings with Ukraine.
‘Bribery is a disaster for Dems. They are trying to impeach [Trump for] what Biden did. Biden offered a thing of value, loan guarantee, in return for official action, firing a prosecutor,’ Giuliani said in a tweet on Sunday.
‘That’s bribery. Requesting an investigation of crimes without conditions is innocent,’ he added, defending the July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that sparked the impeachment probe.
Biden’s presidential campaign did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment from DailyMail.com on Sunday.
President Donald Trump ‘s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani (with him above) has said that Joe Biden committed bribery in his own dealings with Ukraine
Trump’s defenders have frequently pointed to a January 2018 video in which Biden seems to brag about threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine while serving as vice president, as a pressure tactic to force the firing of a prosecutor he did not like.
‘I said, you’re not getting the billion,’ Biden said at a Council on Foreign Relations event. ‘If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b***h. He got fired,’ Biden continued, to laughter from the audience.
Biden’s supporters insist that there was international consensus that the prosecutor in question was corrupt and had to be removed.
However, critics say that Joe Biden’s son Hunter benefited financially from the firing of that same Ukrainian prosecutor, who was investigating a Ukrainian gas company that Hunter sat on the board of, Burisma.
Democratic presidential former Vice President Joe Biden attends a Fire Fighter Chili and Canvass Kickoff in Concord, New Hampshire last weekend
In an earlier tweet at around 1am on Sunday, Giuliani bashed House Democrats over the two public impeachment hearings which they held last week.
‘After 3 witnesses no evidence has been presented of any offense,’ Giuliani said, referring to public testimony at the hearings.
‘The first two permanent diplomats had no direct knowledge just overhearing things. The third one had no knowledge not even hearsay. This is a travesty,’ Giuliani continued.
At the heart of the impeachment inquiry is the allegation that Trump demanded that Ukraine announce an investigation into Burisma in exchange for U.S. military aid.
Giuliani’s own actions have come under scrutiny in the impeachment probe, with testimony from current and former officials about what has been described as a shadow diplomacy in the Ukraine being run by Giuliani, often at odds with U.S. national security interests.
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors are examining Giuliani stood to profit from a Ukrainian natural gas business pushed by two associates who were fixers in his Ukraine inquiries.
Rudy Giuliani (left) has coffee with his Ukraine fixer Lev Parnas at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, on September 20
The associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, pitched their company, and plans for a Poland-to-Ukraine pipeline carrying U.S. natural gas, to Ukrainian officials and energy executives this year, and said the project had White House support, the newspaper said, citing people briefed on the meetings.
Parnas and Fruman also told Ukrainian officials that Giuliani was a partner in the pipeline venture, a project of their company Global Energy Producers, the newspaper said, citing one of the people.
Giuliani has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. In a Friday interview with the newspaper, he denied involvement in the energy company and pipeline pitch, and said he had no indication prosecutors were looking into the matter.
‘Mr. Giuliani was never a partner in GEP and any reports to the contrary are false and categorically denied,’ Robert Costello, a lawyer for Giuliani, told Reuters.