Watch Rudy Giuliani's stunning confession that he has been pressuring Ukraine officials for dirt on Biden
Attorney for the president Rudy Giuliani gave a combative, belligerent and downright incoherent interview on CNN Thursday evening, raving about a ballooning scandal involving Donald Trump and Ukraine.
Giuliani and Trump have apparently been pressuring the country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a probe that could help the president’s re-election campaign. That massive scandal had been unfurling on its own for months, but it blew up Thursday when multiple reports revealed that a mysteriously suppressed whistleblower complaint in the intelligence community reportedly concerns Trump’s conduct and the country of Ukraine.
Giuliani didn’t seem very interested in discussing this aspect of the scandal, saying he knows nothing about the whistleblower issue or Trump’s conduct with Ukraine. He did, however, spin a lot of conspiratorial and unverified tales about Biden, talking about his son Hunter, China, and even Whitey Bulger’s nephew, at one point. (A Ukrainian prosecutor has said there is no evidence of misconduct from the Bidens.) [Updated: Another CNN video was added below with additional fact-checking of Giuliani’s claims.]
But Giuliani couldn’t even keep his facts straight about his own conduct.
“Did you ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?” asked host Chris Cuomo at one point in the interview.
“No! Actually, I didn’t,” Giuliani said. “I asked the Ukraine to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the Ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton for which there already —”
“You never asked anything about Hunter Biden, you never asked anything about Joe Biden and his role with the prosecutor?” said Cuomo.
“The only thing I asked about Joe Biden was to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko who was appointed dismissed the case—”
“So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?” asked Cuomo.
“Of course I did!” yelled Giuliani.
“You just said you didn’t!” replied Cuomo.
Giuliani went on to contradict himself yet again, saying that Biden was guilty of bribing Ukrainian officials to get rid of a prosecutor while he was vice president. But then he later said that, if Trump withheld U.S. government funds in an effort to force Ukraine to take law enforcement actions, that would be completely appropriate.
Watch the clip below:
For CNN’s fact check of Giuliani’s claims, watch below: