Rudy helped Trump hit bottom, and is still digging

You won’t see Rudy Giuliani’s name mentioned anywhere in the historic impeachment resolution aimed at President Trump.

The ex-mayor’s not even among the witnesses whom Democrats want to call when impeachment moves to the Senate for a trial.

Yet Giuliani (photo) played perhaps the most central role in the scheme to dig up dirt on Democratic rivals in Ukraine that led to Trump becoming the third U.S. president to be impeached.

And he remains one of Trump’s most trusted advisers and his personal lawyer. Giuliani isn’t showing any signs of slowing down or backing off, despite the political and legal Pandora’s box he has opened.

It was Giuliani who last winter sold Trump on the idea of using Ukraine to gin up scandal against Democrats.

He enlisted a pair of shady Soviet-born businessmen to connect him to equally discredited figures in Ukrainian politics. They were eager to peddle dubious and convoluted tales about Joe Biden’s son Hunter and a Trump-friendly theory that Ukraine rigged the 2016 presidential vote, not Russia.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman sought to leverage their dirtdigging hunt to cut lucrative deals and greased the wheels with six-figure payments to the cash-strapped Giuliani and a pro-Trump campaign group.

When Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, resisted, Giuliani mounted a loud campaign against her. Soon Trump ousted her.

After newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky failed to open probes into the Bidens, Trump told diplomats to follow Giuliani’s blueprint and turn up the heat. Trump effectively warned Zelensky on their July 25 phone call to get with the program, or else.

The scheme spectacularly blew up when an intelligence whistleblower reported it. Parnas and Fruman were arrested on campaignfinance charges in the fall. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are probing Giuliani for his role in the convoluted scheme, and Parnas has suggested he has damaging information.

You’d think the looming threat of indictment by the Southern District of New York, not to mention sparking the biggest political scandal in at least two decades, might cause Giuliani to lie low for a while.

Instead, Giuliani has barged full steam ahead. On atrip to Eastern Europe this month, he met with many of the same characters who got him in trouble in the first place.

Last week, Giuliani was back at the White House, “briefing” Trump on his latest findings.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), a staunch Trump ally, said Giuliani is welcome to testify before his Judiciary Committee.