Giuliani Keeps the Hustle Going, Even as Trump Is Impeached

Rudy Giuliani is answering his phone less these days. For years the former New York mayor was renowned for talking with any reporter who could get hold of his number, but now he’s more likely to respond by text or call back with his lawyer on the line, if he responds at all. When I first called Giuliani in February for a Bloomberg Businessweek story on his foreign business dealings in Ukraine and beyond, he told me he had five minutes but spoke for closer to 45. That happened twice. By May, when I was reporting on a trip he was planning to Kyiv to push for investigations to help President Donald Trump, he refused to comment, texting: “Why would I call you after your extremely unfair article. Talking to you was a waste of time.” Later that month, he butt dialed me, as he has other reporters, and I overheard him apparently having a heated argument with an unidentified woman. “I really don't care,” he texted when asked about the episode. I’ve spoken to him a few times since May, but Giuliani declined to comment for this story.

He’s on television less, too, perhaps because his appearances in defense of Trump, for whom he’s serving as an unpaid personal attorney, haven’t always been helpful. (In September, as the impeachment inquiry was launched, Giuliani appeared on Fox News and shouted “Shut up, moron! Shut up!” at a fellow guest.) That’s not to suggest he’s backing off. In addition to his roles as lawyer, adviser, pundit, and shadow diplomat, he’s now trying his hand at journalism, if you can call it that. In early December he announced he was working with One America News Network, a right-wing U.S. cable channel, on a project attacking the impeachment inquiry. The series focuses on the debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that meddled in the 2016 U.S. election and on unproven allegations that former Vice President Joe Biden engaged in corruption by calling for the ouster of a prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings, a gas company for which Biden’s son, Hunter, served as a board member. Ukrainian officials have said there was no active probe of Burisma at the time.