Amid impeachment inquiry, Giuliani meets with Ukraine officials

Democrats and Republicans sparred in the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing, battling over whether Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to conduct investigations into his political rivals constituted impeachable offenses.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, met with former government officials in what he said was an effort to undermine the impeachment inquiry and continue his crusade to dig up dirt on those same Democratic rivals, according to the New York Times.

“Like a good lawyer, I am gathering evidence to defend my client against the false charges being leveled against him,” Giuliani wrote the New York Times in a text message on Wednesday.

Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment from the Los Angeles Times. It’s unclear whether he briefed Trump, who has been in London since Monday for a two-day NATO summit, about his travel plans.

Giuliani canceled a trip to Ukraine last spring after he was heavily criticized, and State Department officials are tracking his current sojourn with concern due to the ongoing scrutiny, the New York Times reported.

Both impeachment investigators and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are looking at Giuliani’s activities with Ukraine, in part to determine whether he violated laws regarding lobbying for a foreign country.

“If S.D.N.Y. leaks and Democrats’ threats stopped me then I should find a new profession,” Giuliani told the New York Times.

After a stop in Budapest, Giuliani traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. He met with former Ukrainian prosecutors who have faced allegations of corruption and promoted unfounded claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, as well as the 2016 presidential election.

Along for the ride were reporters for conservative television outlet One America News Network, promoting a documentary series that OANN says is “Debunking Schiff’s Impeachment Narrative” with “first-hand witnesses.”