Recording between Rudy Giuliani and Ukraine official reveals outright 'quid pro quo'
CNN has revealed the recording of the call between Rudy Giuliani and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's top aide where the former president's lawyer pressured the country to investigate the conspiracy theories created around now-President Joe Biden.
The call from 2019 took place between U.S. diplomat Kurt Volker and Zelensky's aid Andriy Yermak and happened ahead of then-President Donald Trump's infamous "quid pro quo" where he demanded a "favor" for aid allocated to Ukraine.
"During the roughly 40-minute call, Giuliani repeatedly told Yermak that Zelensky should publicly announce investigations into possible corruption by Biden in Ukraine, and into claims that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to hurt Trump," said the report, noting "these separate claims are both untrue."
"All we need from the President [Zelensky] is to say, I'm gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he's gonna investigate and dig up the evidence, that presently exists and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out," Giuliani said on the call, according to the audio. "... Somebody in Ukraine's gotta take that seriously."
"I got information from a reliable investigator, international investigator, that there was a certain amount of activity in Ukraine during the 2016 election," Giuliani told Yermak at one point, using another false claim that the U.S. embassy attempted to "produce dirt on then-candidate Trump and Paul Manafort."
"Another one was involved with (George) Soros ... Soros apparently is behind a lot of this," Giuliani claimed of the liberal billionaire that the right-wing loves to create conspiracies about.
Giuliani then brought up the conspiracy theory that Biden wouldn't give money to Ukraine if they didn't fire a top prosecutor in the state that the international community believed was corrupt.
"To me, as a lawyer, it sounds like a bribe," Giuliani said. "A bribe is offering something of value in exchange for official action. So, he offered Poroshenko a $1.2 billion loan guarantee, critical to Poroshenko's success as president, in exchange for getting rid of a prosecutor general."
CNN reported that Guiliani repeated over and over again how necessary the investigation was, even claiming the diplomatic relations would improve between the U.S. and Ukraine if the probe was launched, another example of a quid pro quo.
Giuliani and Volker both told the Ukraine official that such a public announcement would certainly ensure an approved visit to the U.S. for Zelensky, a third bribe.
"That would clear the air really well," Giuliani said, in the recording. "And I think it would make it possible for me to come and make it possible, I think, for me to talk to the President (Trump) to see what I can do about making sure that whatever misunderstandings are put aside ... I kinda think that this could be a good thing for having a much better relationship."
Read the full report at CNN.com and hear a segment of the audio below;
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