Giuliani’s Back With New Accusations: ‘What I Uncovered…Are Two Major Schemes’
By Susan Jones | December 17, 2019 |
Yovanovitch told Congress she was fighting corruption.
Giuliani, who apparently encouraged President Trump’s interest in Ukraine investigations, told Ingraham Monday night:
But what I uncovered, there are two major schemes, one for $7.5 B, the other for $5 billion in money laundering that went on all through the Obama administration. Part of it involved Joe Biden, the bribery part. It’s a disgrace that he’s not under investigation in America, maybe because our law enforcement is too afraid.
But the reality is, it’s a complete defense for the president. When the president of the United States was asking the president of Ukraine to investigate, he was asking him to investigate crimes at the highest levels of both governments that the president of Ukraine referred to as ‘we,’ meaning it’s our problem, a joint problem. So he is being impeached for doing the right thing as president of the United States. Nothing to be defensive about. Zero.
Pressed by host Laura Ingraham, Giuliani said, “Joe Biden was involved in a multi-million dollar corrupt scheme along with a number of other Democrats. It’s never been resolved. They’ve never been held to account. As long as those issues remain between the United States and Ukraine, we really can’t fight corruption in the Ukraine.
‘And the fact is, there are numerous Ukrainian witnesses that want to come to the United States and explain how much during the Obama administration Ukraine was corrupted by Americans.”
Giuliani said he has “a report from the Ukrainian accounting office in 2017 showing that $5.3 billion in aid seems to have been wasted.”
“Our State Department, under (U.S. Ambassador Marie) Yovanovitch, went to the police and told them not to do the investigation, and they demanded they not do the investigation. You know why? Because our embassy was involved in wasting a great deal of that money by giving it to NGOs, and when I … asked, do the NGOs have a political bent? Do you know the answer I was given? They were Soros-like. They were left of left.”
In a just-published interview in The New Yorker, Giuliani said he saw U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as an obstacle who was blocking his investigations. Giuliani bluntly told Ingraham Monday night, “I forced her out because she’s corrupt.”
President Trump, apparently acting on Giuliani’s advice, fired Yovanovitch, who left her post in May.
Giuliani told Ingraham he has tape-recordings with Ukrainian officials, “including career prosecutors who say that during the Obama era, the corruption in Ukraine became substantially worse and that she (Yovanovitch) was a contributor to the corruption.”
Giuliani also accused Yovanovitch of committing perjury when she told Congress that she denied Ukraine Prosecutor-General Shokin a visa because of corruption.
“The fact is, on the record in the State Department’s own records, the reason given is because he had an operation and hadn’t recovered yet. The operation was of course two years before. But it’s documentary evidence that she committed perjury,” Giuliani said.
“I have four witnesses who will testify that she personally turned down their visas because they were going to come here and give evidence either against Biden or against the Democratic Party. There’s no question that she was acting corruptly in that position and had to be removed. She should have been fired if the State Department weren’t part of the deep state.”
Giuliani said a few members of Congress warned Trump about Yovanovitch.
“And then when I interviewed witnesses, not just Mr. Lutsenko, they told me she was specifically holding up visas in order to obstruct the investigation of collusion in the Ukraine and specifically to obstruct the Biden investigation. I have that testimony under oath. I gave it to the State Department. They never investigated a single witness. When they say that she’s innocent, it is innocent without investigation. It’s a cover-up. I’m sorry, it’s a cover-up.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told “Face the Nation” on Sunday that Giuliani is welcome to share his findings with the committee:
“Rudy, if you want to come and tell us what you found, I’ll be glad to talk to you,” Graham said. “We can look at what Rudy’s got and Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and anything else you want to look at after impeachment. But if Rudy wants to come to the Judiciary Committee and testify about what he found, he’s welcome to do so.”
So far, Giuliani has not accepted that offer.