Luka Banda/iStock(WASHINGTON) — President Donald’s Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani told ABC News on Tuesday he is not complying with a congressional subpoena.
Giuliani tells ABC News “if they enforce it then we will see what happens.”
Giuliani went on to tell ABC News he is no longer retaining the services of Jon Sale, who was acting as his attorney for this matter. Giuliani says that if Congress seeks to enforce a subpoena then he will retain counsel.
As part of his final acts as his attorney, Sale sent a letter to Congress on Tuesday replying to the subpoena Giuliani was sent.
Tuesday was the deadline for Giuliani to comply with a wide-ranging subpoena from three of the House committees working on the growing impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
In their subpoena sent to Giuliani late last month, Reps. Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and Elijah Cummings said that Giuliani had “admitted on national television that, while serving as the president’s personal attorney, he asked the government of Ukraine to target former Vice President Joe Biden.”
“A growing public record indicates that the President, his agent Rudy Giuliani, and others appear to have pressed the Ukrainian government to pursue two politically-motivated investigations,” the chairmen wrote. “The Committees have reason to believe that you have information and documents relevant to these matters.”
Giuliani had previously told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos that he would “consider” cooperating with the congressional request but only if his client, President Trump, signed off.
“I’m a lawyer. It’s his privilege, not mine,” Giuliani told ABC News last month. “If he decides that he wants me to testify, of course I’ll testify, even though I think Adam Schiff is an illegitimate chairman. He has already prejudged the case.”
Giuliani has emerged as a central figure in the inquiry. Citing recent testimony by witnesses, Democrats accuse Giuliani of running a shadow foreign policy operation to benefit the Trump campaign. Two Ukrainian-American businessmen who reportedly helped Giuliani to investigate Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, Hunter, were indicted last week on campaign finance charges.
Guiliani’s business relationships remain the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by federal authorities in New York.
Copyright © 2019, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.