Giuliani worked for Dominican Republic candidate amid Ukraine efforts: report

President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani did consulting work for Dominican presidential candidate Luis Abinader around the time he was pushing for investigations that would benefit Trump in Ukraine, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Abinader is running to replace Dominican President Danilo Medina. Before Giuliani was hired as a consultant to the opposition candidate, Medina’s backers pushed to amend the country’s constitution to increase his term limit. Giuliani, who was advising Abinader, called for the constitution not to be changed during a trip to Santo Domingo in July 2019.

Medina later announced he would not seek reelection.

The Post reported that opponents of Abinader accused him of seeking American intervention in the country’s election by hiring Giuliani, who is not an employee of the U.S. government.

Around the same time Giuliani was in the Dominican Republic in 2019, he was also pushing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. diplomats to urge Ukraine to announce investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, issues at the center of the impeachment proceedings against Trump late last year.

Giuliani’s consulting work for foreign governments while also advising the president has caused concern among administration officials, the Post has previously reported.

Giuliani did not immediately respond to a call from The Hill, but told the Post his work in the Dominican Republic was “lawful and appropriate.”

After publication of this article, Giuliani contacted The Hill and lambasted the Post’s reporting, adding the paper has a strong bias against Trump.

“I am very disappointed that The Hill published fake news from The Washington Post,” he said. 

Giuliani stated he did not discuss Abinader matters with Pompeo nor anyone else in the State Department. He stressed that he was hired by Abinader for security services and the implications of the Post article are “completely false.”

The State Department did not respond to an inquiry.

As a former prosecutor and mayor of New York City, Giuliani’s consulting work is pitched as focusing predominantly on providing security services, crisis management and advocating police reform.

His clients include the former mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine, as well as Venezuelan energy executive Alejandro Betancourt López. Giuliani later contacted the Justice Department on López’s behalf in a money-laundering case against him, the Post reported in November.

Giuliani also took issue with the Post’s November article, strongly denying “the false charge” that he lobbied the Justice Department. The truth is, Giuliani said, is that he was serving as the Venezuelan’s energy executive’s criminal defense attorney.

While advising Abinader’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 2016, Giuliani’s consulting firm produced a 38-page report for the campaign with recommendations on how to cut crime. Abinader rehired Giuliani for his current bid in June 2019, the Post reported.

The U.S. Embassy has reportedly declined a request from Abinader to provide security for Giuliani during his trips to the Dominican Republic. 

Recent polls have shown Abinader ahead of his opponents in the Dominican presidential race, with the election taking place in May.

This article was updated on Feb. 22 at 12:20 p.m. to include Giuliani’s comments to The Hill.