Earlier Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Rudy Giuliani is in Ukraine colluding with at least one KGB-trained Ukrainian lawmaker who also happens to be the former head of Ukraine's intelligence service. Oh, and Rudy's meeting was for the express purpose of building a case against Hunter Biden.
Andriy Derkach said he pressed Giuliani on the need to set up a joint U.S.-Ukraine investigation into corruption in Ukraine at the meeting in Kyiv. Derkach also vowed to set up an anti-corruption group in the Ukraine parliament.
And it appears to be another quid pro quo:
But in tweets hours later, [Giuliani] drew connections between future U.S. aid and investigations by Ukraine into former vice president Joe Biden — issues that are already at the center of the impeachment inquiry.
Giuliani tweeted that U.S. assistance to Ukraine on anti-corruption reforms could face a “major obstacle” until the “conversation about corruption in Ukraine” is resolved. Giuliani alleged “compelling” evidence of criminal misdeeds by Biden, but gave no specifics.
Independent Ukraine lawmaker Andriy Derkach was formerly a member of a pro-Russian party in parliament, went to the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow, according to the Post. He is the son of a KGB officer who later served as head of Ukrainian intelligence.
Nothing to see here. According to Rudy, he's making a documentary with One America News Network (OANN) about Hunter Biden, and meeting with representatives of oligarchs while threatening to withhold aid -- again. As for Biden, it's still a ratfck , even when it's done in broad daylight.
Franklin Foer and Lawrence O'Donnell gnawed on this news on Thursday's Last Word.
After Foer explained that President Zelenskiy has thus far managed to avoid Rudy even when he was in Ukraine in May to meddle in the election, he's back and he's confounding everyone.
"Nominally he's representing the President of the United States, and he's going there to collect reporting for this counter narrative that they've tried to spread about Joe Biden, about Ukrainian influence in the election," Foer said.
"But the people that he's meeting with in Ukraine on the ground are representatives of oligarchs," he told Lawrence. "They're some of the more shady politicians in the country."
He summed it up this way:
Plenty. He's making plenty. And I think we also need to look hard at the role Rudy played in 2016 when he was showing up on Fox News making the claim that the FBI had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Clearly he's buying those expensive Italian suits and paying the ex-wives with booty from oligarchs. Maybe he's stepping into Paul Manafort's shoes. Stranger things have happened.
