Giuliani prepares trip to Ukraine to hurt Biden and help Trump

President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has embarked on a new mission now that he has ended his jousting with the special council: to prevent former Vice President Joe Biden from becoming the Democratic candidate for 2020.

"Explain to me why Biden should not be the subject of an investigation," Giuliani said in a tweet that later corroborated accusations against the former vice-president. President, who is now one of the leading Democratic candidates for the presidency.

On a planned trip in the coming days, Giuliani is going to Ukraine where he wants to meet with the elected president of that country to encourage him to consider issues that could help his client, President Trump.

Alex Wong / Getty Images, DOSSIER

The former mayor of New York told the press that his agenda included a request to Ukrainian leaders for any information they could share about the investigation of the special lawyer Robert Mueller, which had ended last month. He also plans to ask for more details on any action taken by former Vice President Biden while he was in office, which could have benefitted his son, Hunter Biden.

Giuliani predicted that he would be asking himself questions about whether he was encouraging foreign interference in a US presidential campaign. He tried to avoid these concerns with comments first sent to the New York Times and then confirmed to ABC News.

"There is nothing illegal about it," Giuliani said. "Someone might say that it's inappropriate, and it's not foreign policy – I'm asking them to do an investigation they're already doing and that others are doing." people tell them to stop. "

Giuliani also appeared on Fox News to assert that the trip abroad is in keeping with his responsibilities as President Trump's attorney.

"I'm his lawyer," Guiliani told Fox. "One of the things lawyers do when they defend a client is to develop innocent assumptions about the charges against them."

Teresa Kroeger / Getty Images, DOSSIER

Giuliani's decision to demand more information about the Biden family is part of the effort to draw attention to Hunter Biden's work for a Ukrainian energy company while his father focused on the country in part of his Obama White House portfolio.

The possibility of conflicts between the public functions of elected officials and the private work of their loved ones has been a well-known and sometimes powerful center of examination in Washington in almost all administrations.

Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings during his father's tenure at the White House. The hiring was controversial at the time – Hunter Biden had no known track record in the country, but would have helped Ukraine gain energy independence from neighboring Russia.

The Ukrainian company has paid about $ 3 million over a year and a half to an investment and consulting partnership led by Rosemont Seneca, according to 260 pages of Rosemont Seneca financial documents, disclosed in an unrelated court case and reviewed by ABC News.

The payments to Hunter Biden were made at a time when his father was responsible for US policy vis-à-vis the Obama Organization vis-à-vis Ukraine and was pushing for reforms to be made. brought into the country, accused of corruption.

One of the elements of this effort was the pressure exerted by the vice-president on the dismissal of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had been accused of passive bribery. Mr. Biden described this effort – in which he stated that he had used the planned announcement of a US $ 1 billion loan guarantee to the country as a means of combating bribery – in a videotaped speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018, as The Hill reported for the first time.

Evan Vucci / AP

"I said," You do not get the billion. " I will leave here, I think it was about six o'clock. I looked at them and said, "I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you will not get the money, "Biden told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. "Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they set up someone who was solid at the time. "

Giuliani fears that the dismissed public prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, is conducting a corruption investigation into Burisma Holdings, the firm that was paying Hunter Biden's consulting partnership and serving on the board. Whether the prosecutor really looks at Burisma Holdings – or if that effort was dormant – has been challenged and, like many politically charged cases in Ukraine, the facts have become difficult to piece together.

A spokesman for the former vice president told The New York Times and then ABC News that the 2016 attack to oust Shokin was "without regard to the impact on his son's business interests," private citizen ". all this is part of a widely supported American effort "to eradicate corruption in Ukraine".

Hunter Biden told the paper in his statement: "I have never discussed with my father any of the company's business or my consulting service, including my initial decision to become a board member."

The Trump campaign, for its part, was seeking to stand out from the president's personal attorney, reporting to ABC News in a statement: "Rudy Giuliani is a private citizen.The campaign is not affiliated with these probes and the questions about them should be addressed to him. "

But Giuliani, for his part, clearly expresses his desire to better understand the controversy.

"I will give them the reasons why they should not stop because this information will be very useful to my client and could be useful for my government," he said.

ABC News & # 39; Molly Nagle and Will Steakin contributed to this report.