Giuliani also met with Zelensky opponent about Ukraine military aid: report

It an effort to hedge his bet over who would win the presidential election in Ukraine, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani met with the opponent of eventual winner Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss military aid at a time when he reportedly was also looking for more business dealings in the country.

According to the Daily Beast, "In late 2018, as he was just starting to look for dirt on the origins of the FBI investigation into Russian election meddling, President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani held a meeting with a top Ukrainian politician many in the administration believed would be the country’s next president."

The meeting between Donald Trump's lawyer and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko took place on Dec. 5, 2018, and was disclosed in a Department of Justice lobbying database, but details were withheld.

With the Beast reporting that the meeting "suggests that Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine policy was more extensive than previously understood and involved more individuals than previously appreciated," new details reveal "that Tymoshenko and Giuliani reportedly 'discussed security issues, including the escalation of Russia's war against Ukraine and the US assistance to our country.'"

According to the report, "The Tymoshenko meeting was brief, came at Giuliani’s request, that the attorney was 'trolling for business,' and that Tymoshenko wanted to share 'her substantive vision of Ukraine.'"

The Beast goes on to report that Tymoshenko was well aware at the time of Giuliani's involvement with the president which is why she took the meeting, adding, "That U.S. aid to Ukraine was a discussion topic raises additional questions about how involved Giuliani was in actually crafting American foreign policy despite playing no official role in State Department channels."

"The meeting between Giuliani and Tymoshenko came at a time when Giuliani’s business and political interests in Ukraine were rising. He was actively looking for financial opportunities in the country, according to two individuals with knowledge of his ventures, and had already inked deals in the Ukraine, including in 2017 with the city of Kharkiv to work on municipal emergency services," the Beast reports. "But Giuliani was also getting more involved in Ukrainian politics as well—specifically trying to unearth evidence that he believed existed that would show that actors in that country had facilitated the launch of the special counsel probe into Russian election meddling."

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