Giuliani hits back at Trump’s nominee for Russia ambassador: He ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’

Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday swiped at President Trump’s nominee to serve as ambassador to Russia after he said in a confirmation hearing that Giuliani was involved in a “campaign” opposing the administration’s former ambassador to Ukraine.

Giuliani hit back at Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan in a pair of tweets, claiming Sullivan “doesn’t know what he’s talking about and shouldn’t be incorrectly speculating.”

“This is an orchestrated attempt to harass and hinder me in my role as @realdonaldtrump’s attorney,” Giuliani tweeted. “All of the information I obtained came from interviews conducted as private defense counsel to POTUS, to defend him against false allegations.”

Giuliani claimed he began obtaining that information as early as fall 2018.

…private defense counsel to POTUS, to defend him against false allegations. I began obtaining this information while Mueller was still investigating his witch hunt and a full 5 months before Biden even announced his run for Pres.

It won’t work!

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) October 30, 2019

Giuliani’s activities are at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his office by pressuring foreign governments to investigate a domestic political rival.

Asked about the administration’s dealings with Ukraine during Wednesday’s confirmation hearing, Sullivan told lawmakers Wednesday that he was aware of a “campaign” against former Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, by Giuliani.

{mosads}“I was aware that Mr. Giuliani was involved in Ukraine issues,” Sullivan said. “My knowledge — particularly in the April, May, June time frame, even into July — was focused on his campaign, basically, against our ambassador to Ukraine.”

Sullivan also told lawmakers that he became aware of a packet of information about Yovanovitch that was supplied to the State Department counsel. He said it was told he came from “someone at the White House” but that he didn’t know who was responsible for producing the packet.

Democrats who reviewed the documents described them as “propaganda” and “disinformation.” Giuliani told NBC News earlier this month that he gave the information to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that he was told State would look into it.

Sullivan’s testimony corroborated some of what Yovanovitch told House lawmakers in a closed-door hearing earlier this month.

Yovanovitch said in her opening statement that she was informed that there had been a “concerted campaign” against her since summer 2018 but that she had done nothing wrong.