(RUDY GIULIANI) Please RETWEET this thread—as it's the worldwide debut of a new Proof of Corruption excerpt. By popular vote, our subject is Rudy Giuliani, a man who helped pervert the 2016 election and aims to do the same in 2020. Preorder links are in my bio and the next tweet.

PREORDER/ Proof of Corruption is out 9/8, and can be preordered—hardcover, ebook, or audio—below. More preorder links are at the Macmillan website. Kirkus Reviews calls it "careful and exhaustive...a strong case for Trump's outsized, boundless corruption." https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250272998?tag=macsupaduinstalpa-20

NOTE/ This excerpt has many endnotes; I've removed them for clarity. As with prior direct-to-twitter excepts—all now available at Macmillan (see link below for an index)—I'll use "¶" for paragraph breaks, "§" for section breaks, and "" for key passages. http://www.sethabramson.net 

NOTE2/ As with the Hannity and Prince excerpts, this excerpt discusses Giuliani but also others, notably four *more* corrupt lawyers: Trump lawyers Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing (), and two Ukrainian prosecutors—Shokin and Lutsenko—in roles analagous to "Attorney General."

BACKGROUND/ Rudy Giuliani received criminal leaks from pro-Trump FBI agents in 2016—see prior Proof series books—and used these to blackmail Comey into reopening the Clinton email case in October 2016 and throwing the election to Trump. He began rigging the 2020 election in 2017.

BACKGROUND2/ With the aid of a few other Trump lawyers—used by Trump for this purpose because attorney-client privilege shields them from being forced to participate in certain criminal investigations—Giuliani's effort to rig the 2020 election has focused on two types of crimes.

BACKGROUND3/ The first crime is bribery—bribery of Ukrainian officials like Shokin, Lutsenko, and even Ukraine's president in a very simple "fake-Biden-dirt-for-official-US-government-action" quid pro quo. The second crime is related: illegal solicitation of foreign election aid.

BACKGROUND4/ Giuliani is under federal criminal investigation for his crimes. Experts anticipate he will—like so many other top Trump advisers, most recently former RNC finance co-chair Elliott Broidy ()—be indicted on this and other (e.g., unregistered-foreign-agent) charges.

EXCERPT/ "In January 2019, Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani invites Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko () to come to New York City for a meeting. The two had previously met in Kyiv during Giuliani's June 2017 meeting with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. ()

Lutsenko will tell the New York Times that as soon as he heard from Giuliani, 'I understood very well what would interest them [Giuliani and Trump]. I have 23 years in politics. I knew. I'm a political animal.' Lutsenko tells the Times that what he 'understood' was that...

...Giuliani wanted him to investigate the Bidens. () At the time Giuliani reached out to him, per the Times, Lutsenko was 'a prosecutor with no legal training and a record of using the law as a political weapon.' () What follows Giuliani's outreach to Lutsenko is...

...two months of contacts between Giuliani, Lutsenko, and The Hill columnist John Solomon () to discuss the Bidens—a period that ends with Lutsenko confessing he has no information of wrongdoing by either the former vice president or his son, Hunter. ()

{¶}

According to the WSJ, on April 12, 2019, Trump legal adviser Victoria Toensing signs contracts agreeing to represent Lutsenko and his deputy Konstantin Kulyk () 'in meetings with U.S. officials about alleged "evidence" of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.'

It is not clear who the 'U.S. officials' in question are, though. The Week reports that—according to Lev Parnas—Toensing and attorney general William Barr () are 'best friends,' and in April 2019 Barr was 'basically on the team' convened for regular meetings by Toensing and...

...her husband [Trump lawyer Joe diGenova] at Trump International Hotel's BLT Prime restaurant. () The Wall Street Journal notes that both Toensing's new Ukrainian clients 'had previously met with Giuliani'—and that on the same day she signed the Lutsenko and Kulyk contracts...

...'Toensing was in frequent contact with Parnas and Giuliani.' () The Daily Beast reports that the contract prepared by Toensing covered other areas of representation as well, with her and her husband also agreeing to represent Lutsenko and Kulyk 'in connection with...

...recovery and return to the Ukrainian government of funds illegally embezzled from that country.' The intended result of the contract is therefore that Lutsenko and Kulyk will hand information on the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory (see chapter 16) to the Trump administration...

...in exchange for Lutsenko and Kulyk suddenly acquiring 'funds' allegedly stolen from the former's office. Because the 'embezzlement' cited in the diGenova-Toensing-Ukraine contract refers to allegations that the US government did not pay Lutsenko's office all the foreign aid...

...it was entitled to receive, what diGenova and Toensing are promising an office of Ukraine's government is a disbursement of US government funds within Trump's sphere of influence at the same time the two Trump legal advisers are requesting pro-Trump election interference. ()

{¶}

It remains unclear whether the diGenova-Toensing-Lutsenko-Kulyk contract was ever countersigned by its two Ukrainian parties. Regardless of its status, it is certain that in October 2019 Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) opened a criminal investigation...

...into Lutsenko for alleged abuse of power; as for Kulyk, he was fired by the Ukrainian government at the end of December 2019 for failing to show up for a required review of his work.

{¶}

In addition to meeting with Rudy Giuliani in January 2019 in New York City and again...

...in February in Warsaw, Lutsenko had received from Giuliani Partners a $200,000 contract offer ostensibly aimed at helping Lutsenko 'recover assets he believed had been stolen'—an offer the Ukrainian prosecutor says he refused, though his refusal may have been attributable...

...to his intention to sign a contract under similar terms with diGenova and Toensing. Giuliani contests Lutsenko's claim that he rejected Giuliani's offer, insisting that in fact it was he who rejected Lutsenko's request for representation on the grounds that it would be...

...a conflict of interest for him as the president's personal attorney. ()

[NB: Giuliani here acknowledges as an impermissible quid pro quo an arrangement quickly taken up by the two other Trump lawyers he was working with—and as an agent for—as part of the "BLT Prime" team.]

Whoever initiated the Giuliani-Lutsenko negotiations—and whatever their result—it's clear an alternative $300,000 arrangement was at one point discussed between Giuliani Partners and Lutsenko in which the president's lawyer would have represented Lutsenko's Ministry of Justice...

...in Kyiv as a foreign agent; as the proposed contract would also have seen Giuliani receive $200,000 directly from Lutsenko—for a total of $500,000 in payments to Trump's lawyer—it is worth noting that $500,000 is the amount the now-indicted Parnas and Fruman were seeking...

...to pay Giuliani in the late summer of 2019. () Had this $500,000 Giuliani-Lutsenko contract been signed, Giuliani would have been representing both a prospective provider and a prospective receiver of disinformation about Joe Biden, thus rendering the entirety...

...of any such illicit exchange of information—in an echo of diGenova and Toensing's dealings with Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash—at least arguably a matter of attorney-client privilege and therefore invisible to federal investigators. ()

{¶}

The Washington Post reports...

...that a third iteration of the Giuliani-Lutsenko contract discussed by the two men in February 2019 would have led to Lutsenko being represented by all three of Giuliani, diGenova, and Toensing. For reasons that remain unclear, by April the latter two Trump attorneys have...

...dropped Giuliani from their proposal to Lutsenko. Lutsenko will tell the Post that Giuliani insisted to him that in order for Ukraine's government to access Bill Barr it would have to pay two lobbyists for the privilege of their assistance: namely, diGenova and Toensing. ()

{¶}

Prior to his January meeting with Giuliani, Lutsenko prepares a document for the Trump lawyer alleging, without evidence, crimes by Biden and his son—but also, per CNN, allegations 'that the Obama administration was behind the leaking of an "information operation aimed at...

...discrediting [his 2016 campaign manager] Paul Manafort."' Days earlier, Giuliani had spoken to former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin () on Skype, during which call Shokin told Giuliani that Obama's ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, advised him in passing...

...to use 'white gloves' in dealing with Burisma, a comment Shokin says he interpreted—it's unclear why—as a directive from Washington not to investigate Burisma at all. CNN reports that David Sakvarelidze (), Shokin's deputy at the time the Pyatt exchange allegedly occurred...

...has since 2015 rejected all of Shokin's claims, telling CNN that the United States and its embassy in Kyiv have been 'very supportive of all our efforts to clean up the system from the corruption—from the protectionism—from the huge corruption.' Of Shokin, Sakvarelidze says...

...the former prosecutor has been, with Lutsenko, 'heading the corruption—the systemic corruption—in Ukraine" since 2015. Sakvarelidze adds, 'Shokin was deeply corrupt and he had to be dismissed. Lutsenko was deeply corrupt and he had to be dismissed. And because of these guys...

...we lost five years in Ukraine, five desperate years.' CNN reports that another Shokin deputy, Vitaly Kasko (), resigned rather than work for Shokin, disclosing to the news outlet, 'I don't think he's a reliable person.' According to Daria Kaleniuk of AntAC—an organization...

...the US State Department calls 'the key Ukrainian anti-corruption NGO'—'Both Shokin and Lutsenko failed to reform the prosecutors' office, and attacked actual reformers and civil society activists.' Of Lutsenko, Kaleniuk () adds, 'He turned the prosecutor general's office...

...into his personal PR office and political platform.' ()

{¶}

In mid-May 2019, Yuri Lutsenko retracts his allegations against the Bidens, telling Bloomberg that 'Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws...we do not see any wrongdoing.' () Several months later...

...two of Lutsenko's former colleagues will tell CNN that 'they believe he was trying to save his own political career' by handing disinformation on Biden to Giuliani; 'Lutsenko wanted an insurance policy' to guarantee that he wouldn't lose his job if his boss Petro Poroshenko...

...was not re-elected, the former co-workers explain, and he was hoping that 'a direct line to the personal lawyer of the US president...would fit the bill.' Lutsenko seems to admit to such a scheme in his May 2019 statement, saying of his meeting with Giuliani in January 2019...

...'I wanted to use the meeting with Giuliani to assure the President of the U.S. that they had a stable channel of information about Ukraine.'

{¶}

Yuri Lutsenko's eventual retraction of his false allegations against the Bidens notwithstanding, hope among Trump's advisers...

...Giuliani, diGenova, and Toensing for a fruitful contractual relationship with the Ukrainian prosecutor was initially high. Call records acquired by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence indicate that on the day Lutsenko was to have signed a contract with...

...diGenova and Toensing, there were multiple calls between the couple's future 'translator' Lev Parnas and Rep. Devin Nunes—Parnas having previously acted as Lutsenko's intermediary to Trump's inner circle—as well as between Parnas and John Solomon at The Hill. At the time...

...Solomon was Giuliani's client as well as Lutsenko's amanuensis in U.S. media. In addition to these communications, phone records for the day reflect calls between Parnas and Giuliani, Giuliani and another Trump attorney (Jay Sekulow ), and Giuliani and the White House. ()

{¶}

While the April 12, 2019 Toensing-Lutsenko contract falls through, the WSJ reports that on April 15, Toensing signs an agreement to represent Viktor Shokin 'for the purpose of collecting evidence regarding his March 2016 firing as prosecutor general of Ukraine...

...and the role of Vice President Biden in such firing, and presenting such evidence to U.S. and foreign authorities.' A telling component of both this contract its April 12 predecessor is their timing relative to a key event on Ukraine's political calendar: they are presented...

...to former or current Ukrainian officials about a week before Poroshenko faces Volodymyr Zelensky () in Ukraine's presidential election. () By seeking to cut a deal with the Poroshenko administration's two prosecutors general just prior to one of the most important days...

...in Poroshenko's political life, diGenova and Toensing may believe they are putting themselves—and Trump—in the best position possible to extract value from top Ukrainian officials.

{¶}

Poroshenko himself, if aware of the contracts, might well have believed them capable of...

...earning him an endorsement from Trump in advance of the April 21 presidential election in Ukraine. () Not only does Trump donor Lev Parnas () tell CNN in January 2019 that he directly offered Poroshenko Trump's endorsement in exchange for an investigation of Biden, but...

...former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch () will testify to Congress in October 2019, per the Washington Examiner, that Lutsenko 'accused Joe Biden of corruption...in part to convince President Trump to endorse Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's doomed...

...re-election campaign.' 'There was always a hope that President Trump would endorse President Poroshenko,' Yovanovitch explains to Congress, adding that 'this is something that President Poroshenko wanted.' Even the Examiner, a conservative publication generally supportive...

...of the Trump presidency, will conclude in November 2019 that 'Yovanovitch's assessment suggests that Poroshenko's team saw Giuliani, in his search for evidence against Biden, as an opportunity to salvage Poroshenko's ailing re-election bid.' That the Shokin contract was...

...likewise, per the Daily Beast, 'explicitly aimed at advancing the sorts of conspiracy theories that Trump and Giuliani have pushed about Ukraine' suggests that it too may have been informed by Poroshenko's dire political straits. Just so, any plans by Trump and...

...his inner circle to throw their lots in with Poroshenko would help to explain the U.S. president's sullen disposition toward the man—Volodymyr Zelensky—who soundly defeated Poroshenko in an election that Trump, per Parnas, contemplated directly interceding in...

...through a surprise endorsement. ()

{¶}

Shokin does not ultimately countersign diGenova and Toensing's proposed $125,000 deal—a contractual exchange that seemingly carried far greater benefit to Trump than to Shokin himself. In July 2019, however, diGenova and Toensing...

...finally get the Ukrainian contract they've been hunting for from Putin agent Dmitry Firtash (), receiving $1 million from the infamous oligarch and international fugitive. One of their first acts as Firtash's lawyers is to secure a statement from Viktor Shokin...

...that serves the same purpose as the contract they had originally proposed to the former Ukrainian prosecutor general in April 2019: to cast aspersions against the conduct of Joe Biden in Ukraine. It remains unclear whether Firtash, Parnas, Fruman, or any other party...

...paid Shokin for his affidavit, and whether any such payment was larger than the $125,000 deal with Shokin originally contemplated by diGenova and Toensing.

{¶}

That the evidence Shokin provides diGenova and Toensing about Biden is false is clear. As Time magazine reports...

...Shokin's 'claims have not stood up to scrutiny,' with 'officials in the U.S. and Ukraine, as well as independent experts and investigative journalists, saying Shokin was fired because of his lax approach to fighting corruption.' () Likewise clear is Shokin's reputation...

...among many in Ukraine and the EU (). The Independent, quoting Ukrainian parliamentarian Yehor Soboliev, reports that Shokin's reputation positions him as 'the embodiment of the post-Soviet prosecutor' who makes 'an art of dumping cases while pretending to investigate.' ()

The British media outlet adds that, per Soboliev, 'If there's one thing Shokin never did, it is investigate.'"

If you found this excerpt interesting, you can preorder the 576-page Proof of Corruption—out September 8 in hardcover, ebook and audiobook—here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250272998?tag=macsupaduinstalpa-20

PRIOR WORLDWIDE DEBUT EXCERPT #1/ I previously debuted a Proof of Corruption excerpt about Erik Prince here on Twitter. In the event you missed it, it's here: https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1296909572024733697

PRIOR WORLDWIDE DEBUT EXCERPT #2/ The second Proof of Corruption excerpt that debuted here on Twitter—which focused on longtime clandestine Trump domestic policy adviser Sean Hannity—was published last week. In the event you missed that one, here it is: https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1298702762226733057

CONCLUSION/ I'll end by reposting my favorite tweet across the 200 tweets of these three direct-to-Twitter excerpt debuts: a tweet giving a sense of the scope of Proof of Corruption, which drops in just 120 hours and can be preordered basically everywhere. https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1296935167798452224?s=20