Giuliani keeps incriminating Trump in impeachable offenses

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is on a media tour admitting to some of the impeachable offenses of which Trump stands accused — with just hours to go until the House is expected to vote to impeach him.

In interviews with the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Giuliani detailed his efforts to smear and oust now-former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, admitting Trump knew of the campaign.

Trump is currently facing two articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power relating to his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, and another for obstruction of Congress, due to his attempts to withhold information and block witness testimony in the House impeachment inquiry.

According to Giuliani, the then-ambassador, long seen as an anti-corruption champion, was standing in the way of Trump’s attempts to solicit investigations into his political rivals from Ukraine by withholding critical military aid to the country and dangling the possibility of a White House meeting, which would have greatly benefited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

On Monday, the New Yorker published a story in which Giuliani admitted that he worked with a conservative columnist at the Hill newspaper to smear Yovanovitch because she was making the effort to get the Ukrainians to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden “difficult.” He said the same to Ingraham in a television interview Monday evening.

And later Monday night, Giuliani told the New York Times that he briefed Trump “a couple of times” about why he thought Yovanovitch was an impediment to getting the Biden investigation, which would help Trump’s 2020 reelection bid.

Yovanovitch, for her part, was a respected ambassador who had served in multiple posts under both Democratic and Republican presidents before Giuliani helped push for her ouster. Witnesses testified during the impeachment inquiry that corrupt Ukrainians wanted to exact revenge on Yovanovitch for thwarting their corrupt efforts in the country. And Giuliani was working with those very corrupt Ukrainians to try and secure an investigation into Biden.

The smear campaign against Yovanovitch was laid out in detail in the House Intelligence Committee’s report urging Congress to impeach and remove Trump.

Giuliani’s decision to take his story to the media comes just days before the House is set to vote on two articles of impeachment against Trump.

The House Rules Committee is meeting on Tuesday to lay out the ground rules for debate on the articles of impeachment. The full House is expected to vote to approve the articles of impeachment on Wednesday, making Trump just the third president in United States history to be impeached.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.