Why relying on Rudy Giuliani now poses such a risk for Donald Trump

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In August, as it was warning the administration of Giuliani being targeted, the US intelligence agencies named Andriy Derkach, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, as someone “ spreading claims about corruption – including through publicising leaked phone call – to undermine Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party.” The following month the US Treasury imposed sanctions against Derkach describing him as an “active Russian agent” who had been working for the Kremlin for more than a decade. 'He continues to lie to us': Biden hammers Trump on coronavirus Giuliani met Derkach in December last year during Trump’s impeachment proceedings as he was searching for Biden information. Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager convicted and jailed after a case arising from the Mueller investigation, was the campaign manager for Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President, who fled to Russia after the 2014 revolution. There is also the matter of the Ukrainian MP Andrii Artemenko, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen – also jailed after a case arising from the Mueller investigation – and Felix Sater a business associate of Trump who once chaperoned Ivanka and Donald Junior to Moscow and had enough influence there for Ivanka to be photographed sitting in Vladimir Putin’s chair and accompanied their father to numerous real estate meetings, Artemenko, it was claimed, had given a secret plan to Sater and Cohen in January 2017 to be passed on to the Trump White House which would, in effect, formalise the dismemberment of Ukraine.