Trump impeachment: Rudy Giuliani was ‘spot on’, president’s lawyer tells Senate trial

‘In this trial, Mr Giuliani is just a minor player,’ says Jane Raskin

Donald Trump‘s defence team has denied that Rudy Giuliani was sent to Ukraine to do “a political errand” for the president, arguing that the former New York mayor was “spot on” about corruption there and at home.

The omission of any mention of Mr Giuliani as the Trump team spoke on Saturday for three hours, and then during its first two hours on Monday, was striking given the former New York City mayor’s major role in the White House’s Ukraine policy push.

It fell to Jane Raskin, a lawyer who also represented Mr Trump during former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia election meddling investigation, to try to convince senators that Mr Giuliani was not sent to the Eastern European country to “dig up dirt” on US Democrats including the Bidens.

“He was doing what good defence attorneys do,” Ms Raskin said. “He was following a lead ... He was gathering evidence regarding Ukrainian election interference to defend his client against false allegations being investigated by Special Counsel Mueller.”

“It had nothing to do with the 2020 election,” she added, contending that Mr Giuliani was acting as Mr Trump’s personal attorney as he investigated “corruption” the Trump camp believed existed during the last US presidential cycle.

She noted that Mr Trump hired the man known as “America’s mayor” six months before former vice president Joe Biden announced his intention to seek the White House for a third time.

Ms Raskin criticised the seven House Democratic managers for mischaracterising Mr Giuliani’s role and intent during their three days of case-making. She accused them of “bias” and taking a “purely political” view of the Ukraine affair.

“The House managers may not like his style. You may not like his style,” Ms Raskin said, describing Mr Giuliani as “everything ... a defence lawyer must be: outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade”.

Ticking off a list things Republicans say the Mueller investigation and probes by Justice Department internal watchdogs show internal bias against Mr Trump, she declared: “Mr. Giuliani was spot on”.

And in a line that surely pleased her client, she declared “the score is Mr. Giuliani 4, Mr. Schiff 0,” referring to one of Mr Trump’s leading Democratic foils, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff of California, his party’s lead impeachment manager.

“In this trial,” Ms Raskin said between audible sighs, “Mr. Giuliani is just a minor player.”

House Democrats, however, have a very different view. As he closed the Democrats’ case on Thursday night, Mr Schiff said: “This is why he needs to be removed: Donald Trump chose Rudy Giuliani over his own intelligence [agencies]. He chose Rudy Giuliani over his own FBI director.

“He chose Rudy Giuliani over his own national security advisers. When all of them were telling him this Ukraine 2016 stuff is kooky crazy Russian propaganda, he chose not to believe them. He chose to believe Rudy Giuliani. That makes him dangerous.”