Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/418

 "It's a big story. It's a dramatic story. And I guarantee you, Joe Biden will not get to election day without this being investigated, not because I want to see him investigated. This is collateral to what I was doing.$175$"

The next morning, on May 10, amidst the press coverage of his trip, Mr. Giuliani tweeted:

"Explain to me why Biden shouldn't be investigated if his son got millions from a Russian loving crooked Ukrainian oligarch while He was VP and point man for Ukraine. Ukrainians are investigating and your fellow Dems are interfering. Election is 17 months away. Let's answer it now$176$"

He then had another flurry of calls with Mr. Parnas. Shortly after 2:00 p.m., Eastern Time, Mr. Giuliani also spoke with Ambassador Volker on the phone.$177$ Ambassador Volker had learned that Mr. Giuliani intended to travel to Ukraine "to pursue these allegations that Lutsenko had made, and he was going to investigate these things"-specifically, the debunked story that Vice President Biden had improperly pressured Ukraine to fire a corrupt prosecutor general, as well as the Russian-backed conspiracy that the Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.$178$ Ambassador Volker testified that he had a simple warning for Mr. Giuliani: Prosecutor General Lutsenko "is not credible. Don't listen to what he is saying."$179$ Call records obtained by the Committees reveal that their call lasted more than 30 minutes.$180$

Call records also show that around midday on May 10, Mr. Giuliani began trading aborted calls with Kashyap "Kash" Patel, an official at the National Security Council who previously served on Ranking Member Nunes' staff on the Intelligence Committee. Mr. Patel successfully connected with Mr. Giuliani less than an hour after Mr. Giuliani's call with Ambassador Volker. Beginning at 3:23 p.m., Eastern Time, Mr. Patel and Mr. Giuliani spoke for over 25 minutes.$181$ Five minutes after Mr. Patel and Mr. Giuliani disconnected, an unidentified "-1" number connected with Mr. Giuliani for over 17 minutes.$182$ Shortly thereafter, Mr. Giuliani spoke with Mr. Parnas for approximately 12 minutes.$183$

That same afternoon, President Trump conducted a 15-minute long phone interview with Politico. In response to a question about Mr. Giuliani's upcoming visit to Kyiv, the President replied, "I have not spoken to him at any great length, but I will ... I will speak to him about it before he leaves."$184$

Recently, when asked what Mr. Giuliani was doing in Ukraine on his behalf, the President responded: "Well, you have to ask that to Rudy, but Rudy, I don't, I don't even know. I know he was going to go to Ukraine, and I think he canceled a trip."$185$ Prior to that, on October 2, the President publicly stated; "And just so you know, we've been investigating, on a personal basis-through Rudy and others, lawyers-corruption in the 2016 election.$186$ On October 4, the President publicly stated: "If we feel there's corruption, like I feel there was in the 2016 campaign-there was tremendous corruption against me-if we feel there's corruption, we have a right to go to a foreign country."$187$