Rudy Giuliani was reportedly retained for 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' by an associate's firm Fraud Guarantee
- Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, was paid "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to work for Ukrainian-American Lev Parnas at his fraud prevention firm Fraud Guarantee, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
- Giuliani told The Times on Thursday that he provided legal and business advice to Parnas.
- Both Parnas and an associate Igor Fruman were charged with campaign finance violations, according to the unsealed indictment. The men have also been called to testify in the House impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump but declined to appear.
- The impeachment inquiry was sparked by a whistleblower complaint, which alleged that Trump abused his power "for personal gain" during a July 25, phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and pressed the leader to investigate former Vice President and 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
- Giuliani has said publicly on multiple occasions that he pushed Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens ahead of the election.
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Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, was paid "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to work for Ukrainian-American Lev Parnas at his fraud prevention firm Fraud Guarantee, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
Parnas is one of Giuliani's associates charged with campaign finance violations on Thursday, according to an unsealed indictment. Another Giuliani associate, Igor Fruman from Belarus, was also charged.
According to The Times, associates of Parnas said that he told them he paid "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in order to retain Giuliani at Fraud Guarantee. Giuliani told The Times on Thursday that he provided legal and business advice for Parnas and Fruman, but said he couldn't "acknowledge it's Fraud Guarantee, I don't think."
The Times reported that Giuliani "dispatched" Parnas and Fruman to Kiev "to find people and information that could be used to undermine [special counsel Robert Mueller's] investigation" and also uncover information that would be potentially damaging to Trump's main Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Parnas told The Times last month, "My only business with Giuliani was a long time ago" and involved an insurance company which Giuliani provided "some advice on."
Both Parnas and Fruman have been called to testify in the House impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump but declined to appear. Giuliani was also subpoenaed by the congressional committees overseeing the impeachment inquiry for key documents related to Trump's efforts to get Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 elections.
Giuliani has said publicly on multiple occasions that he pushed Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter ahead of the election.
The impeachment inquiry was sparked by a complaint was lodged by an intelligence official in August, and alleged that Trump abused his power "for personal gain" during a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.