President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he was blindsided by explosive claims made by former national security John Bolton about the president’s actions toward Ukraine.
“He never said to me, ‘I’ve got a problem with what you are doing in Ukraine,'” Giuliani said in an interview with CBS This Morning that aired Wednesday. “Never once, never winked, never sent me a little note. He is a personal friend, I thought. So, here’s the only conclusion I can come to, and it’s a harsh one, and I feel very bad about it: He’s a backstabber.”
He continued, “If your friend was complaining about you behind your back and didn’t have the guts to come up to your face and tell you, ‘I think you’re screwing up, Catherine,’ that’d be a backstabber. That’s a classic backstabber. So, I feel I got a swamp character here.”
NEW: President Trump’s personal attorney @RudyGiuliani called John Bolton a “backstabber” and told @CBS_Herridge he doesn’t think the former national security adviser should testify in the Senate impeachment trial.
More on @CBSThisMorning Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/TR1vCveIOQ
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) January 28, 2020
Bolton alleged in his forthcoming book, The Room Where it Happened, that Trump conditioned aid to Ukraine on the country investigating Joe Biden, the former vice president and a top contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, undercutting the Trump defense team’s claim that the freeze on security assistance was not connected to an investigation.
Giuliani, who was part of the pressure campaign, said he doesn’t believe Bolton’s claims.
“I can’t imagine the president of the United States said that to him,” Giuliani said.
