Thread by @TheViewFromLL2

I don't think it's mentioned enough that this whole conspiracy theory began with Rudy Giuliani getting duped by a Ukrainian politician who tried to seek Trump's favor by feeding Giuliani fabricated documents. Which Giuliani, of course, fell for hook line and sinker.

https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1175513288454619138

Actually, scratch that. You know what's not mentioned at all, but ought to be the goddamn headline?

In January, a foreign government official reached out to the president's personal attorney to tell him, "I have dirt on Joe Biden, let's meet" and GIULIANI TOOK THE MEETING.

It's the June 9 Trump Tower meeting ALL OVER AGAIN. Except now, no one even blinks an eye over the fact that a foreign state reached out to Trump to offer him dirt on his opponent, and Trump had his personal lawyer show up to take whatever dirt the foreign state wanted to offer.

Remember in June when Trump said if a foreign government came to him offering him information that could damage his opponent, he'd take it?

*He had already done that five months earlier.* A Ukraine official came offering him dirt on Biden, and he sent Giuliani to accept it.

Here's part of the memo Lutsenko prepared and gave to Giuliani. Remember how, back in the spring, Giuliani and Trump were going on Fox yelling about how they had "proof" from Ukraine that the Mueller investigation was a Democratic hoax?

Yeah this is what they were talking about.

The Lutsenko memo was a sham, put together by a Prosecutor General who was falling out of political favor and desperate to hold on to his seat by winning the patronage of the U.S. president. And in May 2019, Lutsenko backtracked and withdrew his claims. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Here's the most complete version of the Lutsenko memo I've seen. It claims things like the "black book" evidence on Manafort was a forgery (it wasn't), and that Sec of State Kerry and VP Biden conspired to lobby for Burisma while in office (they didn't). viewfromll2.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/lutsen…

So Giuliani's dirt on Biden turned out to be a flop. Though as something of a consolation prize, Lutsenko offered to send AG Bill Barr records of any Ukrainian payments made to Hunter Biden, so Barr could check on whether Hunter had reported everything correctly on his taxes.

(It's not clear to me whether Lutsenko was successful in sending these records to Attorney General Barr, but if he did, they have yet to result in charges for tax evasion against Hunter Biden.)

An intriguing point, though – back in May, when this was all going down, Trump stated it would be "appropriate" for him to talk to Barr about investigating Biden.

And yet, so far, there's no indication that the DOJ has gotten involved in any of this. politico.com/story/2019/05/…

And sure, maybe Trump was able to restrain himself from asking Barr to jump into the Ukraine mess. On the other hand, anyone really want to take that bet?

I wonder, then. Could it be that Barr was asked to get involved, and that Barr refused Trump's request?

My question would be whether, originally, Giuliani's role here might've been just to receive the dirt, and pass it to Trump. But then Barr refused to act, perhaps judging the risk of personal liability to be too great (or perhaps judging the entire scheme to be too boneheaded).

That's nothing but speculation, but I wonder still, because it might explain the extended, messy, and impromptu nature of Giuliani's contacts with Ukraine. And explain why it even became necessary for Trump to hop on the phone with Zelensky to take care of matters himself.