Brooklyn prosecutors begin probe into whether Ukrainians used Rudy Giuliani to interfere in 2020 election

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether current and former Ukrainian officials tried to illegally influence the 2020 election by spreading misinformation, including through Donald Trump’s former lawyer and adviser Rudy Giuliani, The New York Times reports.

Since the end of the Trump administration, prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, have been exploring whether pro-Russia Ukrainian figures tried to spread damaging claims about Joe Biden and his son as a way to tip the election in favour of Mr Trump.

Among the targets of the investigation is Andriy Derkach, a member of parliament in Ukraine, who US officials previously warned then-president Trump was a figure being used to spread misinformation about the election. In September, the Treasury Department sanctioned Mr Derkach, calling him an “active Russian agent.”

Mr Giuliani met with the MP on a 2019 trip to Europe, as part of his campaign to seek damaging information about the business and political dealings of the Biden family in Ukraine. The two later met again, when Mr Derkach recorded a podcast episode with Mr Giuliani.

In August of 2020, Mr Trump retweeted a set of audio tapes Mr Derkach released, purporting to capture a 2016 conversation between Mr Biden and Petro Poroshenko, then the president of Ukraine, which the US labelled Russian propaganda.

Both Mr Giuliani and Mr Derkach deny any wrongdoing.

“When you investigate allegations of corruption, you talk to all sorts of people; some are credible, and some are not,” Robert J Costello, a lawyer for Mr Giuliani, told the Times, adding “some day the truth will come out” about Mr Biden’s history in Ukraine.

Mr Derkach, meanwhile, said he was the victim of a smear campaign and said the information he’d released during the election showed evidence of “international corruption.”

Mr Giuliani is not thought to be a target of the Brooklyn investigation, but Manhattan federal prosecutors and the FBI are investing him directly on whether he improperly lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of powerful Ukrainian officials and oligarchs, with federal agents searching his home and offices in New York in April. (Mr Giuliani denied any wrongdoing and called the investigation part of a “corrupt double standard” at the time).

Mr Trump may be out of the White House, but intrigue surrounding the influence of figures in Russia and Ukraine on US elections and politics hasn’t ended. Hunter Biden is under federal tax investigation, apparently in part for his work in Ukraine for an energy company believed to be corrupt.

There’s also a Justice Department special council, appointed by the Trump administration, which is investigating the origins of the Mueller inquiry into 2016 Russian interference, an investigation of an investigation Mr Trump consistently sought to dismiss as a “hoax” despite the numerous ties it revealed between Russian influence and his campaign.