Rudolph W. Giuliani has become a prime culprit for Democrats seeking President Trump’s impeachment, but Mr. Giuliani said Thursday he is the hero of the Ukraine story.
“It is impossible that the whistleblower is a hero and I’m not,” Mr. Giuliani told The Atlantic. “And I will be the hero! These morons — when this is over, I will be the hero.”
Mr. Trump’s use of Mr. Giuliani, his personal attorney, for investigations in Ukraine has infuriated Democrats pushing for impeachment. A House hearing Thursday highlighted how much Mr. Trump relies on the former federal prosecutor to find answers in murky places.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said after the hearing that he intends to investigate Mr. Giuliani’s position as a quasi-official emissary to Ukraine. The hearing examined a whistleblower’s complaint saying Mr. Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential front-runner Joseph R. Biden and son Hunter.
“We want to know what role Rudy Giuliani had in all of this,” Mr. Schiff said.
Sen. Christopher Coons, Delaware Democrat and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Mr. Giuliani “should be held to account for his role in this.”
“It will be interesting to hear how he tries to explain the way in which he served as an individual mediary here,” Mr. Coons told reporters.
Mr. Giuliani, a former New York mayor, said of his role, “You should be happy for your country that I uncovered this.”
For months, Mr. Giuliani has been working at the president’s direction to explore the origins of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016. That probe led to a nearly three-year-long investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, who found no collusion between the campaign and Russia.
Mr. Giuliani also has been digging for dirt on Mr. Biden and his son, who received $3 million from a Ukrainian natural gas company while Mr. Biden served as the Obama administration’s top liaison with Ukraine. He has promised more to come on Mr. Biden.
In the July 25 phone call at the heart of the whistleblower’s complaint, Mr. Trump urged Mr. Zelensky to cooperate with Mr. Giuliani in his efforts. Democrats say Mr. Trump withheld $391 million in military aid to Ukraine as leverage to secure an investigation of the Bidens, a charge the president denies.
Democrats say Mr. Giuliani’s involvement is inappropriate and that it is counterproductive for the president’s personal attorney to conduct foreign affairs as a freelancer. They also accuse the president and Mr. Giuliani of seeking foreign help in a U.S. election.
But lawyer John Dowd, who represented the president during the Mueller investigation, is rooting for Mr. Giuliani.
“I’m glad Rudy’s doing it,” Mr. Dowd told The Washington Times. “Everything that’s gone on [with the Russia probe] is an incredible fraud and a hoax, and he’s going to get to the bottom of why it happened.”
Mr. Giuliani’s performances on TV defending the president range from combative to cringeworthy, but Mr. Dowd said he is a fearsome lawyer.
“He’s one of the finest prosecutors ever,” he said. “The guy knows what he’s doing. He defends the president. And part of the defense is finding out how this all happened.”
Mr. Dowd said of Mr. Trump’s actions in Ukraine: “He’s not the first president to use private counsel. Private offices are sometimes more effective than the bureaucracy. The president didn’t lose his ability to defend himself or his constitutional rights because he occupies the Oval Office.
“Rudy’s been very open about it [with the media]. He’s made no bones about it.”
During meetings at the United Nations this week, the president said Mr. Giuliani’s work is “very important.”
“You had a Russian witch hunt that turned out to be 2½ years of phony nonsense,” Mr. Trump said. “Rudy has got every right to go and find out where that started. And other people are looking at that, too. Where did it start? It was out of thin air. And I think he’s got a very strong right to do it. Rudy Giuliani is a great lawyer. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
There are few talents the president appreciates more than the ability to defend him well on TV.
“I’ve watched the passion that he’s had on television over the last few days,” Mr. Trump said. “I think it’s incredible the way he’s done.”
The Justice Department confirmed Wednesday that U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating Ukraine’s role in potential 2016 election interference, while a transcript of Mr. Trump’s phone call released the same day showed that he sought the Ukrainian president’s help in a probe of a missing Democratic email server.
Attorney General William P. Barr tapped Mr. Durham this year to look into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe.
Some Republicans also have qualms about Mr. Giuliani’s role as the president’s overseas troubleshooter.
“This is not how the greatest country on the Earth should operate — the president’s lawyer going behind the scenes, behind the State Department’s back and operating foreign policy on a parallel track,” Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Paul D. Ryan when the Wisconsin Republican was House speaker, said on Fox News.
But a Republican close to the White House said it’s typical of how Mr. Trump likes to conduct business — with people he knows and trusts to get things done.
“Trump directs his own stuff,” the Republican said. “I don’t see a problem with Trump relying on Rudy.
“His MO is pretty much, ’What’s the best way to get this done?’ It’s not that he’s trying to short-circuit things. He just doesn’t understand [objections to using a private lawyer]. And he’s been ill-served by the fact that a lot of [Republicans with government experience] just don’t want to work for him.”
Democrats at Thursday’s hearing on the whistleblower’s allegations asked acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire whether Mr. Giuliani has a security clearance — Mr. Maguire said he didn’t know — and about his role in foreign affairs.
“My only knowledge of what Mr. Giuliani does … I get from TV & news media,” Mr. Maguire said. “I am not aware of what he does for the president.”
Mr. Schiff asked whether Mr. Giuliani’s work is “improper.”
“I believe that Mr. Giuliani is the president’s personal lawyer, and whatever conversation that the president has with his personal lawyer, I would imagine would be client-attorney privilege,” Mr. Maguire said. “I’m in no position to criticize the president of the United States on how he wants to conduct that, and I have no knowing of what Mr. Giuliani does or does not do.”
Mr. Giuliani called the accusations of interfering in foreign affairs “total nonsense.” He told CNN that he has a “nice little trail” of text message conversations with the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, to show he is working with the knowledge of the State Department. He also said he has received thank-you messages.
“I don’t think they’d thank me if I was interfering in foreign relations,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I told them everything that I did. There’s nothing I did that they don’t know.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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