White House was told Russia targeted Giuliani to feed misinformation to Trump, report says

The White House was warned by US intelligence agencies last year that Rudolph Giuliani was targetted by Russia to feed misinformation to Donald Trump.

Reporting by The Washington Post, based on information from four former officials familiar with the matter, says that the president’s personal lawyer interacted with individuals tied to Russian intelligence during his December 2019 visit to Ukraine.

The warnings from the intelligence services to the White House led national security adviser Robert O’Brien to caution Trump that information brought back from Ukraine by Mr Giuliani should be considered contaminated by Russia, according to one of the officials.

Mr Giuliani visited Ukraine to gather information that he thought would implicate Joe Biden and his son Hunter in corrupt acts.

The Post reports one of the sources as saying that message back to the White House was: “Do what you want to do, but your friend Rudy has been worked by Russian assets in Ukraine."

Officials wanted to protect the president at a time when he was facing impeachment over attempts to lean on Ukraine’s president to investigate the Bidens and the gas company Burisma.

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