Lindsey Graham Suspicious Giuliani's Ukraine Information May Be Russian Propaganda
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested in an interview Sunday that the information Rudy Giuliani claimed he gathered on Ukraine and Joe Biden may be Russian propaganda.
Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, returned last month from a trip to Kyiv with what he characterized as damaging findings. He has yet to reveal any facts.
“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,” Graham warned in an interview with The Daily Beast. “I’m very suspicious of what the Russians are up to all over the world.”
The senator noted that Giuliani has not shared any of the information with him.
Earlier this month Graham invited Giuliani to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, to vet his unsupported claims that former Vice President Joe Biden helped his son Hunter get a spot on the board of a Ukraine energy company.
Giuliani and Trump have also both pushed the debunked claim that it was Ukraine, not the Kremlin, that interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Graham, agreeing with the American intelligence community, has said he is “1000% confident” it was Russia — not Ukraine — that meddled in the election.
Graham’s indication that Giuliani’s information could be Russian propaganda is surprising given that the senator has already launched an investigation into the Bidens.
Graham has also defended Trump’s call to Ukraine pressuring President Volodymyr Zelensky to probe the Bidens — while Trump was withholding military funds. Though the call triggered Trump’s impeachment, Graham is insisting the call was not cause for impeachment. But at the same time, he has also conceded that the “Trump policy toward Ukraine ... was incoherent.”
Graham isn’t the only senator trying to put daylight between himself and Giuliani ahead of the impeachment trial. The Daily Beast reports that senators are avoiding meeting with Giuliani in part because they fear he’ll peddle Kremlin conspiracy theories as fact, according to several sources.
“Rudy Giuliani long ago lost any shred of credibility, especially after the dossier he assembled for the State Department stunningly mirrored Russian propaganda,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) told the Beast.
Giuliani has insisted his information is not Kremlin propaganda.
Read the full Daily Beast story here.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
