'Unbelievable': Ex-Trump official stunned president is still letting Giuliani run around unchecked in Ukraine

In a Washington Post report on the continuing attempts by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to dig up dirt on political opponents -- at the same time that President Donald Trump is facing impeachment for pressuring Ukraine with the promise of aid for the same -- a former Trump administration official expressed shock that Giuliani hasn't been told to stop.

According to the report, "Even as the House of Representatives began drafting charges against President Trump this week, his private attorney, who many believe is partly responsible for leading Trump on the path to his likely impeachment, made an audacious trip to the country at the center of the scandal."

"Rudolph W. Giuliani departed Kyiv after meeting with a range of Ukrainians who have been feeding him unproven allegations against former vice president Joe Biden and helping construct a counternarrative that is taking hold in the Republican Party," the Post reports. "The latter story line asserts that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, including with the baseless theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee."

According to the report, White House insiders who already see Trump's personal lawyer as a loose cannon, are stunned by the brazenness with which Giuliani is boasting about what he is doing -- particularly because he is reportedly being investigated by both the Justice Department and SDNY -- and that Trump is allowing him to create more legal issues down the line.

"Current and former officials in Washington expressed astonishment at how Giuliani — apparently on behalf of the president — seemed to be mocking impeachment investigators, if not the very idea that either he or his client should answer any articles of impeachment," the Post reports, with Jeffrey Edmonds, who served as Russia director at the White House National Security Council under both Barack Obama and Trump, giving voice to concerns.

“It’s unbelievable to me the open way in which the administration and Giuliani are still pursuing this,” he told the Post, before adding, "It is a way of . . . asserting that everything that we’re doing is perfectly normal, perfectly fine and we’re going to keep doing it.”

Democrats are equally shocked.

“It’s a brazen move,” claimed Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Il), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “This is emblematic of this White House: When they are in the wrong, they double down. And in this case, they are tripling down.”

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