Giuliani: Pompeo was 'aware' of Ukraine meetings
Giuliani said that Pompeo did not ask him to have the meetings with Ukraine aides, but that he was aware of them.
"When I talked to the Secretary last week, he said he was aware of it. He told me he that was aware of it," Giuliani said.
During a telephone call in July, President Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to speak with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who had been pursuing a globetrotting effort to find out whether Ukrainian officials improperly dropped an investigation of a company that had hired the son of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, one of the leading contenders to challenge Trump when he seeks re-election in 2020.
The president also offered to involve the U.S. attorney general, according to a summary of the call the White House released last week.
Giuliani has said the State Department helped arrange meetings with aides to Zelenskiy, posting a copy of a text message from a U.S. diplomat on Twitter.
Giuliani acknowledged in May that he was planning to head to Ukraine to press for an investigation of the Bidens. "We're not meddling in an election, we're meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do," he told The New York Times at the time.
He, the White House and the unnamed CIA whistleblower have since made clear that he had significant help from the U.S. government.
Giuliani on Thursday posted a text message from Kurt Volker, a State Department special representative to Ukraine, on July 19 connecting him with one of Zelensky's associates.
A week later, Trump himself urged Zelenskiy to call Giuliani, telling him "if you could speak to him that would be great," according to a White House summary of the call.
Last Friday, Volker resigned.
A whistleblower complaint from within the intelligence community, released publicly on Thursday, described Volker as trying to "contain the damage" from efforts by Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats.
Volker, who had served in the position on a part-time, unpaid basis since 2017, had sought to help Ukraine's government resolve its confrontation with Russia-sponsored separatists.
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, who are conducting an impeachment investigation of Trump, have sought testimony from Volker relating to the July 25 phone call in which Trump encouraged Ukraine's president to investigate Joe Biden and his son.
