US prosecutors are investigating whether President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had any personal profit from a Ukrainian natural gas business that was launched by two associates of his and who also aided in his efforts in the country to commence probes that could benefit President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to the report, Giuliani's associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman had plans for a Poland-Ukraine pipeline for US natural gas.
Earlier in November, former European and Russian Affairs Senior Director at the National Security Council (NSC) Fiona Hill said that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, had advocated for an investigation into the Ukrainian energy company Burisma that employed Hunter Biden.
In October, US federal prosecutors opened an indictment against Fruman and three other businessmen – Lev Parnas, David Correia, and Andrey Kukushkin – for funnelling $1 million in donations from foreign nationals to unspecified political campaigns in the United States.
The four men are also accused of having donated money to a member of Congress and then pressing the lawmaker to remove or recall the then-US ambassador to Ukraine.
The indictment followed an impeachment inquiry into Trump over his 25 July telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which the US head of state purportedly tried to press Kiev to probe alleged corruption by Hunter Biden, who was linked to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. A whistleblower claimed that the White House had attempted to restrict access to the transcript of the call and described it as an attempt by Trump to solicit a foreign power’s interference in the 2020 presidential election.