President Donald Trump issued a statement Friday denying a New York Times report that claimed he asked former National Security Adviser John Bolton to get involved in Rudy Giuliani’s anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.
Giuliani began traveling to Ukraine in the spring of 2019 in the hopes of uncovering damaging information about Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, and the Biden family. The Times reported that Bolton’s unpublished manuscript of his forthcoming book describes the president’s efforts to get him to set up a meeting between Giuliani and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. (RELATED: Report: John Bolton Undercuts Trump’s Main Ukraine Defense In Book Manuscript)
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“Mr. Trump told Mr. Bolton to call Volodymyr Zelensky, who had recently won election as president of Ukraine, to ensure Mr. Zelensky would meet with Mr. Giuliani, who was planning a trip to Ukraine to discuss the investigations that the president sought, in Mr. Bolton’s account. Mr. Bolton never made the call, he wrote,” the Times claimed.
The president denied the allegations in a statement.
“I never instructed John Bolton to set up a meeting for Rudy Giuliani, one of the greatest corruption fighters in America and by far the greatest mayor in the history of N.Y.C., to meet with President Zelensky. That meeting never happened,” Trump said in a statement.