Rudy Giuliani reached out to President Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman Paul Manafort through the federal lockup’s lawyer in efforts to bolster his theory that Ukraine backed Hillary Clinton in her 2016 White House bid, according to a report.
Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, contacted Manafort several times in recent months to dig up information about a secret “black ledger” obtained by a Ukrainian anti-corruption bureau, according to The Washington Post.
The ledger recorded $12.7 million in cash payments from former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s political party to Manafort, the New York Times reported in August 2016.
The revelation led Manafort to resign from Trump’s campaign.
Manafort, 70, who resigned from Trump’s campaign after the revelation, is serving a 7½ -year term in a federal prison in Pennsylvania for federal tax fraud, bank fraud and other crimes stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
His crimes are related to Manafort’s work in Kiev for the political party of Yanukovych, according to the Washington Post.
Manafort has continued to express support for the president, who has never ruled out giving him a pardon.
Giuliani said he wanted to consult with Manafort through the latter’s lawyer to ask whether a black andrew ledger ever existed.
“I said, ‘Was there really a black book? If there wasn’t, I really need to know. Please tell him I’ve got to know,’” Giuliani told the Washington Post regarding what he asked of Manafort’s lawyer.
“He came back and said there wasn’t a black book,” he added.
Giuliani joined the president’s legal team in April 2018 to help defend him against Mueller’s probe — and the former New York City mayor said he launched his own investigation into Ukraine last year, which led him to consult with Manafort.
He said he has not spoken directly to Manafort in two years.
“It was that I believed there was a lot of evidence that the [Democratic National Committee] and the Clinton campaign had a close connection to Ukrainian officials,” Giuliani said, adding that he was never calliing for a Manafort pardon.
“It was all about Trump. I don’t think I could exonerate Manafort.”
Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, did not respond to a request for comment by the Washington Post.
Adrienne Watson, press secretary for the Democratic National Committe, said in a statement that “the White House has been pushing this narrative to distract from Donald Trump’s gross abuse of power in pressuring a foreign country to interfere in our elections.”
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