Don’t Forget That Rudy Giuliani Was a Russia Disinformation Stooge

By David Corn  July 11, 2023

Rudy Giuliani at a November 19, 2020, press conference at the Republican National Committee falsely claiming election fraud. Tom Williams/AP

The man formerly known as America’s Mayor was in the headlines once again last week. A panel of the DC bar’s board of professional responsibility recommended that Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for his “unparalleled” efforts to overturn the 2020 election for Donald Trump. It noted that his actions “helped destabilize our democracy” and violated the oath he swore when admitted to the bar to uphold the US Constitution. “He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it,” the panel concluded. “By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the court, forfeited his right to practice law.” A DC court of appeals will eventually decide whether to disbar him. Meanwhile in New York state, Giuliani has had his law license temporarily suspended, as disciplinary proceedings against him continue there.

The report of the DC bar was a reminder that those who plotted with Trump to overthrow American democracy are still confronting consequences for their diabolical misdeeds. John Eastman, the lawyer who pushed the notion that then–Vice President Mike Pence could invalidate the election results to help Trump, is facing possible disbarment in California. In March, Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked closely with Giuliani to advance Trump’s Big Lie, admitted she had knowingly misrepresented facts as part of a deal with the Colorado bar in which she agreed to be censured. (Giuliani has also been sued recently for sexual assault and harassment—charges he denies.)

If the only public opprobrium Giuliani faces is disbarment, he will be getting off easy. But more may be coming. He has been interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith, who has been investigating the Trump-incited January 6 riot and Trump’s schemes to subvert the 2020 election. Whatever happens on that front, there is already enough information available about another troubling matter to pronounce what should be a damning verdict for Giuliani: He was a Russian stooge.

Remember his endeavors to dig up dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign? That sleazy effort has been overshadowed by Giuliani’s Keystone Kops–like attempt to keep Trump in power. Yet as House Republicans continue to chase after Hunter-related scandals that may or may not exist (while ignoring the shady dealings of Jared Kushner), keep in mind that Giuliani put much of this into play—and that he did so in league with a Russian agent.

Giuliani was the major promoter of the debunked claim that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, orchestrated the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor to smother a corruption investigation of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma because his son Hunter was on the board of this firm.

For well over a year, Giuliani engaged in very public activities to spread that phony tale. (There was no Burisma investigation to kill, and Joe Biden, acting in concert with US allies, pushed for the dismissal of this prosecutor because he was not investigating corruption.) This is the origin story of all the Hunter scandal stuff that the GOP is currently pursuing. And Hunter’s infamous laptop? Giuliani disseminated its contents as supposed proof of the Joe-Hunter-Ukraine conspiracy. Long story short: the laptop did not contain such evidence.

One component of this sordid Giuliani-initiated saga has not received sufficient attention: the Russia connection.

While Giuliani was jetting back and forth to Ukraine during the 2020 election to promote this conspiracy theory, he was in cahoots with a Ukrainian parliamentarian named Andriy Derkach—the son of a former KGB official—who in September 2020 was sanctioned by the Trump Treasury Department, which called him “an active Russian agent for over a decade” and declared he was one of a group of “Russia-linked election interference actors.”

The Treasury said Derkach had maintained “close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services” and “directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election.” Trump’s own Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, stated, “Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world.” Previously, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had told Congress that Derkach was “spreading claims about corruption” as part of the Kremlin’s effort to undermine Biden’s campaign.

Derkach had staged press conferences in Kyiv and played secretly recorded tapes of Biden speaking by phone with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Derkach insisted the recordings backed up Giuliani’s allegations about Biden. Yet the tapes revealed no misconduct. This was a disinformation stunt. Ukrainians critical of Russia speculated that the tapes originated with Russian intelligence. In August 2020, William Evanina, then the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said Derkach was assisting a clandestine Russian effort to “denigrate” Biden.

Giuliani, who was pushing the same accusations, met with Derkach in Kyiv and publicly admitted he was in touch with the Ukrainian, calling him “very helpful.” He said that he and Derkach had spoken about Ukraine many times.

It's not hard to connect these dots. Giuliani was collaborating with a Russian agent who was mounting an operation to undermine Biden and his presidential bid. That is, he was cooperating with—and advancing—yet another Russian intelligence operation to help Trump. Was he scheming directly with Derkach? Was he only a useful idiot? Whatever occurred, Giuliani became the chief booster of the bogus accusations being generated and disseminated by a Russian agent.

This line of Giuliani’s résumé ought to be more well known. A former New York City mayor and past top Justice Department official who represented the sitting president of the United States was, wittingly or not, a Russian intelligence asset. Yet Giuliani’s skullduggery on this front has been subsumed by his starring role in Trump’s plot to overthrow the constitutional order of the United States.

As for Derkach, Giuliani’s partner-in-disinformation, he was indicted in December by the Justice Department on seven counts of banking fraud and money laundering in connection with the purchase and maintenance of two condominiums in Beverly Hills. Yes, Beverly Hills.

Derkach, federal prosecutors charged, allegedly concealed his interest in the transactions and violated sanctions imposed in 2020. At the time of the indictment, US Attorney Breon Peace noted that Derkach had been “sanctioned for trying to poison our democracy.” FBI Assistant Director Michael Driscoll stated that Derkach, a “Kremlin-backed Ukrainian politician and oligarch,” had been “sanctioned for his efforts to influence the 2020 US Presidential election on behalf of the Russian Intelligence Services.” He added, “While participating in a scripted Russian disinformation campaign seeking to undermine US institutions, Derkach simultaneously conspired to fraudulently benefit from a Western lifestyle for himself and his family in the United States.”

Derkach, the Justice Department noted, “remains at large.” A recent report from the Royal United Services Institute, a British national security think tank, states that Ukrainian intelligence believes Derkach has been spying for Russia on Ukraine’s nuclear industry.

Reckoning for Giuliani is not over. He could face trouble in Smith’s investigation or in the ongoing criminal probe in Georgia of the Trump team’s attempt to coerce election officials there to change the 2020 results. He could end up without law licenses in New York and Washington, DC. But we already know enough to declare Giuliani an accomplice of a foreign adversary that tried to covertly influence the 2020 election to keep Trump in the White House. Giuliani did the Kremlin’s dirty work and betrayed America. There may not be a direct punishment for that. But it should never be forgotten.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

Coming Soon: The Our Land Zoom Get-Together

Here’s a repeat of a previous announcement: As promised—or threatened—we will be holding a Zoom gathering for premium subscribers to Our Land. The time: 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 18. The place: wherever you have an internet connection. Here’s how it works: Premium subscribers—which means those of you who pay that small monthly amount to receive the full version of Our Land—will get a separate mailing with a Zoom link the day of the event. Click on it, and you will be transported to our group chat, where we will discuss recent news, recent issues, and whatever else might be on your (or my) mind. To be clear: Only premium subscribers will receive this invitation. So, if you’d like to be part of this jamboree, sign up before then at www.davidcorn.com. Will folks show up? I have no idea. But if this goes well, we just might make it a regular thing.

Elliott Abrams, Again?

Sometimes journalism feels like Groundhog Day. In the 1980s, Elliott Abrams, a prominent neocon who was a top State Department official in the Reagan administration, was much in the news. He defended war-crime-committing right-wing militaries and militias in Latin America supported by the Reaganauts. He was a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, who eventually pleaded guilty to misleading Congress. But none of this was a career-killer for the guy. He was handed comfy sinecures in think tanks, and President George W. Bush gave him a senior position in the White House. He was feted by conservative outlets.

In the decades after his Reagan administration stint, whenever Abrams reemerged, I made it a point to publicly recall his nefarious past as liar to Congress and a defender of brutal murderers. My efforts and those of others haven’t made much of a dent. Last week, the White House announced President Joe Biden was appointing Abrams to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. The bipartisan commission’s job is to oversee US government information programs designed to convey American diplomacy to the world, such as Voice of America.

So…WTF? Why was Abrams rewarded with this honor? It turns out that the White House was abiding by the tradition that the leadership of the opposition party gets to pick the names for the seats on the commission reserved for the party not in the White House. So congressional Republicans chose Abrams. We don’t know who. Mitch McConnell? Kevin McCarthy? But in any event, the Biden White House, per DC custom, rubber-stamped this odious pick. 

Of course, I felt obliged to revive the same Elliott Abrams piece I’ve written several times before. It won’t stop his latest rehabilitation, but I hope it’s a reminder of some of the horrors of the Reagan years and of how Washington can protect its worst miscreants. You can read it here.

The Watch, Read, and Listen List

Silo. I’m a moderate sci-fi fan, certainly not obsessive. As a kid, I read Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury, but I never fell too deep into the black hole of science fiction, and I can’t tell you who are its best purveyors these days. But for reasons I can’t explain, I seem to have been drawn to SF in recent months. (Looking for escapism?) After having a lunch with one member of the team that made The Expanse, I binge-watched the six seasons of this show set several hundred years in the future, when humans have colonized the Solar System, including Mars and the asteroid belt farther out. The geopolitics of the show are fascinating, as Earthers, Martians, and Belters (the underclass exploited by the corporations, governments, and militaries of the two planets) clash over control of resources and vie for power. Of course, an existential threat from far beyond our corner of the universe emerges, and the question becomes whether humans can put aside their petty squabbles and band together to confront this danger. This addictive and smart series, which is available on Amazon and ended last year (though there might be more to come), drew a devoted following for good cause.

As soon as I was done with that, I turned to Apple TV+’s new Silo, which, like The Expanse, is based on a popular series of sci-fi books. In what seems to be the dystopian future, 10,000 or so humans are living in an immense underground structure that has 144 levels. No one is allowed to leave the Silo, for, they are told, the outside world is a toxic and uninhabitable wasteland. Curiously, the citizens of the Silo have no idea what happened that led to their claustrophobic existence. Apparently, an uprising of some sort about 140 years earlier destroyed all historical knowledge. (They don’t even know that the lights in the night sky are stars.) But the Silo-ites have persisted. They grow food within the structure, maintain a huge generator that keeps the air flowing, and use desktop computers that look like they come from the late 1980s. Think Compaq.

There are many rules and many secrets. One rule: Anyone who dares utter that they want to leave the Silo is sent outside to what appears to be certain death. This may all sound a bit silly, but Graham Yost, the creator of the series, pulls it off. This world makes its own sense, yet Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), an independent-minded engineer who becomes sheriff of the Silo almost by accident, has too many questions. Why did the previous sheriff ask to be sent out? Why did his wife? What information is being hidden by the Silo’s head of IT (Tim Robbins) and the chief of a secret police unit (Common)? What’s on the hard drive—an illegal artifact that these cops are after—that was uncovered by Nichols’ dead boyfriend? What are the people of the Silo not being told about their past and the world beyond the Silo?

Nichols is a savvy but nervous investigator who must navigate bureaucratic clashes and actual danger to pursue the truth. The show does a great job of teasing a viewer along. You, too, want to know what the hell is going on in the Silo. Are all these rules and secrets for the good of the citizenry? Or do they exist only to allow the folks at the upper levels to control the people below? The first season ends with a whopper of a surprise that raises more questions than it provides answers. I am waiting eagerly for the next season for more explanations. That’s a sign of good television.

Chrissie Hynde, Valve Bone Woe. I was driving along, listening to independent radio station WFUV, and this bluesy number came on, with a powerhouse female vocalist belting out the tune. The song, “How Glad I Am,” sounded vaguely familiar, but not this soulful version, and I couldn’t identify the singer. After it concluded, the DJ filled me in: Chrissie Hynde. But this was no Pretenders track. As I subsequently found out, in 2019 Hynde released an album of covers, mainly jazz-ish numbers and old standards, such as Frank Sinatra’s “I’m a Fool to Want You.” The disc, Valve Bone Woe, includes several unusual numbers, among them Brian Wilson’s “Caroline, No” (which was the last track on the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds), Nick Drake’s “River Man,” and Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington’s “Wild Is the Wind,” which was first recorded by Johnny Mathis and later by Nina Simone. I relish the version David Bowie put on his Station to Station album.

Hynde, with her aggressive in-your-face singing and ’tude, was a punk/new wave pioneer. But, it turns out, her smokey vocal stylings lend themselves well to crooning. As Sinatra did, she captures the after-midnight yearning embodied in many of these tunes. Hynde first caught our attention by boldly singing about her “brass in pocket.” All these decades later, she had the confidence to apply her talents to an eclectic collection of songs.

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

July 8, 2023: Ron DeSantis and the GOP primary of hate; from Twitter to Threads; an Our Land Zoom get-together; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Linda Yaccarino); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 1, 2023: The patriotism of government bureaucrats; Marvin Kitman, RIP; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Rick Scott); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

June 27, 2023: When lying doesn’t matter (including John Durham’s testimony); Hightown, a crime drama that explores the underside of Cape Cod; and more.

June 24, 2023: Why Jack Smith must go farther; Dumbass Comment of the Week (the Trump and DeSantis war rooms); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

June 21, 2023: How Daniel Ellsberg changed the world—and my life; how you can support Our Land; Loves Comes to Buildings on Fire’s love letter to the NYC music scene of the 1970s; and more.

June 17, 2023: How dangerous is Elon Musk?; anatomy of a (No Labels) scoop; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Fox News); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

June 13, 2023: HBO’s brilliant Reality—and my appearance in it; Jenny Lewis’ rocks mid-life; and more.

June 10, 2023: Pat Robertson’s obits left out a key fact: his crazy antisemitic conspiracy theory; how best to post a Santos scoop; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Jay Monahan); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

June 6, 2023: Mike Pence and the right’s revival of its war on gay America; CNN CEO’s big fail; 65 and a bad day to get stranded on Earth; Joy Oladokun’s effort to be the “Black Bruce Springsteen; and more.

June 3, 2023: What the GOP’s hostage-taking in the debt ceiling fight tells us about regulating rogue AI; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Jenna Ellis and Glenn Greenwald); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.