Rudy Giuliani, who serves as President Trump’s personal lawyer, said he spoke with a Ukrainian official about Joe Biden’s possible involvement in an investigation into the former vice president’s son’s conduct relating to a Ukrainian-owned gas company.
The former New York City mayor’s meeting with Ukrainian officials was first reported by The New York Times. He later confirmed in an interview with CNN that he met with the officials.
Giuliani told CNN he spoke with Andriy Yermak, whom he called the lawyer for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, over the phone twice and agreed to a meeting in Madrid last month.
{mosads}Giuliani told the network the conversation focused on Biden’s possible role in a prosecutor’s dismissal of an investigation into a Ukrainian natural gas company with connections to Biden’s son and how Ukraine may have tried to damage Trump’s campaign.
Giuliani told CNN he’s “proud of what he did.”
“I wouldn’t do an unethical thing in my life, I’m a really good lawyer,” Giuliani said.
Giuliani told the Times he was acting as a private citizen and was not sure if Trump approved or is aware of his conversations with Ukraine.
Spokespeople for the State Department and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Times reports the White House referred questions to the State Department, which also did not respond to the newspaper’s request to comment.
Other Western governments have called for the prosecutor’s dismissal and no evidence has indicated Biden’s actions were inappropriate, CNN noted.
Giuliani’s meeting comes months after he canceled a similar planned trip to Ukraine regarding Biden, a top-tier Democratic presidential primary candidate and one of Trump’s political rivals.
Giuliani had said in May that he planned to meet with top Ukrainian officials to pursue an inquiry to yield new information about the origins of the Russia investigation and Biden’s past influence in the country.
When he announced he wouldn’t be going on the original trip, he blamed Democrats for trying to “spin” it.
“I think I’m walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president, in some cases enemies of the United States, and in one case an already convicted person who has been found to be involved in assisting the Democrats with the 2016 election,” Giuliani said on Fox News without clarifying to whom he was referring.