Report: Trump told that Russia tried to influence Giuliani
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter.
The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and conversations.
The warnings to the White House, which have not been previously reported, led national security adviser Robert O’brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia, one of the former officials said.
The message was, “Do what you want to do, but your friend Rudy has been worked by Russian assets in Ukraine,” this person said. Officials wanted “to protect the president from coming out and saying something stupid,” particularly since he was facing impeachment over his own efforts to strong-arm Ukraine’s president into investigating the Bidens.
Officials’ warnings about Giuliani underscore the concern in the U.S. intelligence community that Russia not only is seeking to reprise the disinformation campaign it waged in 2016, but also may now be aided, unwittingly or otherwise, by individuals close to the president.
The former officials said Giuliani was not a target of U.S. surveillance while in Ukraine but was dealing with suspected Russian assets who were, leading to the capture of some of his communications.
Several senior administration officials “all had a common understanding” that Giuliani was being targeted by the Russians, said the former official who recounted O’brien’s intervention. That group included Attorney General William Barr, FBI Director Christopher Wray and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.
Spokespersons for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred inquiries to the White House.
“National Security Advisor O’brien and White House Counsel Cipollone meet with the President frequently on a variety of matters. Ambassador O’brien does not comment on sensitive intelligence topics, or on the advice he provides President Trump,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said in a written statement. The national security adviser “can say that the President always treats such briefings with the utmost seriousness. The characterization of the meeting as described in this article is not accurate.”
In a text message Thursday, Giuliani said that he was never informed that Andriy Derkach, a pro-russian lawmaker in Ukraine whom he met Dec. 5 in Kiev, was a Russian intelligence asset.
In September, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach for allegedly running an “influence campaign” against Joe Biden, calling the Ukrainian “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who has maintained “close connections with Russian intelligence services.”