Chris Murphy says Zelensky promised to steer clear of Giuliani
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a trio of U.S. senators last week that he would continue to steer clear of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to one of the senators.
“Zelensky clearly doesn’t really want to talk about this, and I don’t blame him,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in a Medium post detailing his meeting in Kyiv on Friday with Zelensky and two Republican senators, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and John Barrasso of Wyoming.
Murphy asked Zelensky whether he was “still feeling pressure” to aid Giuliani’s push for investigations targeting Trump’s political rivals, noting Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine have not abated.
“But he tells us that, though Giuliani has long wanted a meeting with him, he has always stayed clear of Giuliani and intends to keep it that way,” Murphy wrote.
Murphy’s account of the meeting comes two weeks after the Senate acquitted Trump on charges that he solicited foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election by dispatching Giuliani to Ukraine to pressure the country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, among other political adversaries. The inquiry revealed, in part, that Giuliani sought a meeting with Zelensky last year with Trump’s knowledge and consent.
The objective of the Friday sit-down in Kyiv, according to Murphy, was to “send a signal that there is no distance between” Democrats and Republicans when it comes to U.S. support for Ukraine, a beleaguered ally that continues to fight Russian incursions to its east. Several lawmakers have expressed concern that the impeachment saga was further fraying the U.S.-Ukraine relationship and undermining U.S. interests in the region.
Murphy and Johnson began quietly making preparations for the trip during the Senate’s impeachment trial. Murphy said he was restless during a red-eye flight to the region on Thursday as he contemplated how he would tell Zelensky that it would be “disastrous” for Ukraine if he involved himself with Giuliani.
“I felt like I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t once again remind Zelensky of the damage he could do to the country’s reputation if he ever succumbed to the pressure,” Murphy wrote. “I couldn’t sleep as I tried to figure out the tactful way to continue to make this case.”
Murphy indicated that he was satisfied with Zelensky’s response, adding that the Ukrainian leader “has no intention of getting involved in American politics any more than he already has, unintentionally.”
Later, Murphy wrote, Zelensky began speaking English and quipped about his past life as an entertainer in Ukraine.
“As an actor, I always dreamed of becoming famous in America,” Zelensky said, according to Murphy. “And now I’m famous in America. But not the way I wanted!”
After meeting with Zelensky, the senators traveled to Munich for an annual security conference. Murphy revealed in his blog post that he met on the sidelines of the gathering with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
Murphy said he sought to make clear to Zarif that any further attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq “will be perceived as an unacceptable escalation” in the aftermath of a U.S. strike that killed a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, and Iran’s response attack on a base in Iraq that wounded dozens of American soldiers.
“I cannot conduct diplomacy on behalf of the whole of the U.S. government, and I don’t pretend to be in a position to do so,” Murphy wrote. “But if Trump isn’t going to talk to Iran, then someone should.”
Trump responded later Tuesday, suggesting without evidence that Murphy had violated the Logan Act, which bars private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. Trump said he wants to know what Murphy and Zarif discussed.
“I saw that there is a Senator Murphy, met with the Iranians, is that a fact? I just saw that on the way over, is there anything I should know?” Trump mused. “That sounds like to me a violation of the Logan Act. What happened with that?”
A spokeswoman for Murphy said the senator gave the U.S. embassy in Germany a heads up that he was pursuing a meeting with Zarif, adding that Murphy has met with Zarif before — under both the Obama and Trump administrations.
“Unfortunately, President Trump’s Iran policy has been a total disaster. So I can understand that he wants to distract from his failures,” Murphy said in a statement in response to Trump’s missive, adding that he and Zarif discussed “apolitical priorities.”
