Republicans such as South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham have been dodging the president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani ahead of the impeachment trial for President Trump until he verifies his Ukraine findings.
Graham and others have been pushing Giuliani to take any information he may have about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden from his time in Ukraine to the intelligence community, according to the Daily Beast. Giuliani has continued to dig around Ukraine for dirt on the Bidens in connection to Hunter Biden’s high paying gig on the board of the natural gas firm Burisma.
The former New York City mayor said he has compiled a massive report on the Bidens, which he believes could verify Trump’s concerns about corruption that he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate in the July 25 phone call that eventually led to his impeachment in the House.
Graham, who has been a Trump defender as the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged Giuliani to vet the information he gathered in Ukraine to ensure it isn’t Russian disinformation.
“He has not shared any of that information with me,” Graham said of Giuliani’s research. “My advice to Giuliani would be to share what he got from Ukraine with the IC [intelligence community] to make sure it’s not Russia propaganda. I’m very suspicious of what the Russians are up to all over the world.”
Giuliani responded to Graham’s suggestion, saying, “It’s not Russian propaganda.”
The intelligence community has been sensitive to Russian disinformation throughout the impeachment process. Several agencies briefed members of the Senate on disinformation, including the claim that Ukraine was responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee and notified them that the claims were part of Russia’s effort to pass the blame onto Ukraine for 2016 election interference.
