Giuliani works for foreign clients while serving as Trump’s attorney

[Jason]

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Rudolph W. Giuliani continues to work on behalf of foreign clients both personally and through his namesake security firm while serving as President Trump’s personal attorney — an arrangement experts say raises conflict of interest concerns and could run afoul of federal ethics laws.

 

Giuliani said in recent interviews with The Washington Post that he is working with clients in Brazil and Colombia, among other countries, as well as delivering paid speeches for a controversial Iranian dissident group. He has never registered with the Justice Department on behalf of his overseas clients, asserting it is not necessary because he does not directly lobby the U.S. government and is not charging Trump for his services.

 

 

Manafort was also working for Trump "pro bono".

 

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Among the clients represented by Giuliani’s consulting firm is the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, whose mayor was a leading figure in Party of Regions, the Russia-friendly political party at the center of the federal conspiracy prosecution of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. His firm worked for the mayor in 2018 and is expected to work for him again later this year, Giuliani said in an interview.

 

Kharkiv has contracted with a subsidiary of Giuliani’s consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to help set up a new office of emergency management there, according to Giuliani and others involved in arranging the deal. Giuliani traveled to Ukraine last November to meet with Kharkiv officials and then hosted a delegation from the city in New York in March, about three weeks before he was hired as Trump’s attorney, according to officials and Ukrainian news reports.  

 

Another current Giuliani client is the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian resistance group operating in exile that was listed as a terrorist group by the State Department as recently as 2012. Giuliani said he has regularly received payments from MEK over the past 10 years; he declined to disclose his fees. 

 

Giuliani acknowledges giving a paid speech to the group in May in Washington, and he delivered another speech at an MEK gathering outside Paris on Saturday advocating regime change in Tehran. He said before the conference he planned to spend “three or four days” in Paris helping the group.

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Lobbying experts said some of Giuliani’s work for overseas clients is likely to require registration under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), which mandates disclosure to the Justice Department of attempts “to influence U.S. public opinion, policy, and laws” on behalf of foreign entities or individuals. Although violations are punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, the Justice Department has prosecuted only a handful of cases in recent decades.

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Giuliani has also lobbied the president to promote his son, Andrew, a low-level White House aide who has clashed with Kelly and others in the West Wing. The elder Giuliani said that before becoming Trump’s attorney, he asked about a promotion he believed Trump had promised his son, and the president responded in the affirmative. He said he has not talked to the president about the issue since becoming his lawyer.

 

But three White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Giuliani continued to lobby Trump for his son’s promotion after he became the president’s lawyer.

 

Andrew Giuliani, who works in the White House Public Liaison Office, often arranges sports team visits to the White House and has been a regular Trump golfing partner for years. He suggested in an interview with The Post that some at the White House have bristled at his efforts to root out leaks.

 

“I’ve been lucky enough to know the president for close to 30 years and known him well for 20 years,” Andrew Giuliani said. “I find him to be similar to an uncle, and I’m lucky enough to be very close to his family.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-works-for-foreign-clients-while-serving-as-trumps-attorney/2018/07/09/e21554ae-7988-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_term=.2c6bf0321f74