Trump defends Giuliani’s trip to Ukraine: ‘He does it out of love’

“He’s a great person who loves our country, and he does this out of love, believe me. He does it out of love,” Trump told reporters during an Oval Office event on regulatory reform.

Giuliani was spotted at the White House on Friday, but the president on Monday was tight-lipped about what his personal attorney relayed.

“Not too much,” Trump said when asked what Giuliani had shared.

The president lauded Giuliani as a great “crime-fighter,” adding “he knows what he’s doing.”

The president’s personal attorney traveled to Ukraine earlier this month to meet with current and former Ukrainian officials in pursuit of information that could undercut Democrats’ impeachment case against Trump and damage the president’s political rivals, including 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Giuliani said following his trip that he hoped to speak with Attorney General William Barr and congressional Republicans about his findings, which he has claimed prove misconduct by Biden and the Obama administration. 

He has pushed the claim that Biden engaged in corruption when he led the Obama administration’s efforts to oust a Ukrainian prosecutor at the same time his son, Hunter Biden, was on the board of a Ukrainian gas giant.

There is no evidence either Biden engaged in any wrongdoing, though some government officials have said there was at minimum the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Giuliani has lobbed those allegations at a time when he is front and center in both an ongoing impeachment proceeding and a reported criminal investigation in New York’s Southern District.

Government officials testified last month that Giuliani indicated that Ukraine needed to announce investigations into Trump’s political rivals to secure a White House meeting, and they alleged that the president’s personal attorney was conducting a shadow foreign policy outside of regular diplomatic channels.

Giuliani said in an interview published Monday in The New Yorker that he needed former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch “out of the way” because “she was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.”

Even some Republicans have expressed unease with Giuliani’s role in foreign policy, though they have said it is a separate issue from whether to impeach Trump.

The House is expected to vote Wednesday to impeach Trump in a largely party-line vote on two articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Giuliani could appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but that it should remain separate from the looming Senate impeachment trial.