This post has been updated to reflect that, after deleting the tweet in question Wednesday, Rudy Giuliani posted another tweet with the same claims.
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani tweeted a denial of a key detail in the ongoing impeachment inquiry, rejecting a witness’s testimony that Trump ordered him to work with Giuliani.
EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified Wednesday that during a May 23 meeting President Donald Trump directed him and others to work with Rudy.
Sondland said he and others “worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States.”
Giuliani claimed that he “came into this at Volker’s request,” not Trump’s. He initially deleted the tweet shortly after posting it, but he then republished the same message.
I came into this at Volker’s request. Sondland is speculating based on VERY little contact. I never met him and had very few calls with him, mostly with Volker.
Volker testified I answered their questions and described them as my opinions, NOT demands. I.E., no quid pro quo!
— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) November 20, 2019
F0r his part, former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker recalled in testimony Tuesday that Trump said at the meeting to “talk to Rudy.” Volker claimed he didn’t take it as an order.
Earlier Wednesday, Giuliani tweeted about the now-infamous July 25 phone call in which Trump pressured Zelensky to pursue the investigations that would help Trump’s reelection campaign. Rudy got the date wrong.
During the July 24 conversation @realDonaldTrump agrees to a meeting with Pres. Zelensky without requiring an investigation, any discussion of military aid or any condition whatsoever.
This record shows definitively no quid pro quo, which is the same as no bribery. END OF CASE!
— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) November 20, 2019
Though Trump floated a White House meeting to Zelensky on that call, it was a full two months before the two actually met.
In that time, Giuliani, Sondland and others carried out the pressure campaign that nearly led Zelensky to give Trump the “deliverable” he wanted — an announcement of the investigations.
