Giuliani Admits Wanting Amb. Yovanovitch 'Out of the Way'

Rudy Giuliani, in an interview appearing in The New Yorker on Monday, admitted to a reporter he was involved in the campaign to remove former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. 

"I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way," Giuliani told The New Yorker's Adam Entous, who reported the conversation as part of an extensive profile on former Ukraine Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko. "She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody."

Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and President Donald Trump's personal attorney, spoke with Lutsenko while in Ukraine with One America News Network, where he was working to dig up information on former Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The article examines how Lutsenko ended up being accused of corruption in recent years, as well as reports details about the connections between Lutsenko, Giuliani and two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, both of whom have been indicted. 

Lutsenko had been seen as an anti-corruption fighter when he was first elected, but he was angry when the U.S. embassy asked him to back anti-corruption reforms. He complained about diplomats, including Yovanovitch, to Entous, and said both he and Giuliani had thought they could offer each other a "win-win" situation.

Lutsenko had also wanted to meet with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018, but Yovanovitch and others tried to block the meeting, leading to Lutsenko's meeting with Giuliani after Parnas offered to connect them, reported Entous. 

Giuliani, who had been investigating 2016 Ukraine conspiracy theories, met with Lutsenko, who gave him financial documents concerning Biden's son, Hunter, and claimed he had been hired by energy giant Burisma to lobby the former vice president. 

Entous reported Giuliani had compiled a dossier on the Bidens and Yovanovitch, which he shared with him as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the FBI. 

• Giuliani Charges Former VP Biden 'Bribed' Ukraine President
• Giuliani Shocked AT&T Turned Over Phone Records