During an extremely heated conversation with Chris Cuomo Thursday night on CNN, Rudy Giuliani appeared to directly contradict himself when he denied he ever asked the government of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, only to say “of course I did” moments later.
Guiliani, who serves as Donald Trump’s attorney, was on to discuss the report that an intelligence community official filed a formal whistleblower complaint after becoming “alarmed” by a “promise” Trump made to an unnamed foreign leader, a complaint that the Washington Post said Thursday was at least in part connected to Ukraine.
Some minutes into the discussion, Cuomo asked Giuliani about talks he might have had with an official in Ukraine about an investigation into Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, that the Ukranian government ultimately ended.
“Did you ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?” Cuomo asked.
“No, actually I didn’t,” Giuliani replied. “I asked the Ukraine to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the Ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton, for which there is already a court finding.”
“You never asked anything about Hunter Biden? You never asked anything about Joe Biden and his role with the prosecutor?” Cuomo then asked.
Giuliani responded: “The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko, who was appointed, dismissed the case.”
“So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?” Cuomo asked.
“Of course I did,” said Giuliani.
After some more back and forth, Giuliani attempted to clarify that he only asked Ukraine “to look into the allegations that related to my client, which tangentially involved Joe Biden in a massive bribery scheme.” Things only got more heated after that, as Cuomo pressed him on the apparent contradiction and Guiliani angrily denounced Cuomo.
“It is sad to watch what happened to you,” Guiliani said after calling Cuomo “biased.” “It’s sad! You’re a total sellout.”
Watch the whole thing above.
Before you go: Giuliani delivered a coda of sorts to the argument shortly after, tweeting: “A President telling a Pres-elect of a well known corrupt country he better investigate corruption that affects US is doing his job. Maybe if Obama did that the Biden Family wouldn’t have bilked millions from Ukraine and billions from China; being covered up by a Corrupt Media.”