In response to a question from Democrat Joe Manchin and Kristin Sinema, and Republicans Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins about whether the White House would assure the Senate that it would not allow private citizens to conduct foreign policy, White House lawyer Patrick Philbin stepped in it, and Rep. Adam Schiff pounced. Philbin answered "I just want to make clear that there was no conduct of foreign policy being carried on here by a private person."
That was all the opening Schiff needed. "We have just heard a breathtaking admission by the President's lawyer," he said. "What the President's counsel said was that no foreign policy was being conducted by a private person here. That is Rudy Giuliani was not conducting U.S. foreign policy. Rudy Giuliani was not conducting policy. That is a remarkable admission," Schiff continued. They have suggested, he said, that "this is a policy issue," about burden-sharing or corruption, but "they have no acknowledged that this was not about policy. […] This was not policy conducted by Mr. Giuliani."
"They have just undermined their entire argument," he added. "If Giuliani wasn't there conducting foreign policy, it must have been a "personal political errand."
xSchiff: “They have now acknowledged that the person in charge of this [Rudy Giuliani] was not conducting policy. That is a startling admission.†https://t.co/kfaqEJJajc pic.twitter.com/078mN8Nojk
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 30, 2020
Donald Trump is holding a rally in Iowa days before Democrats in that state hold the nation's first presidential nominating caucus.
(Bloomberg) -- Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas withdrew his request for permission to provide government evidence in his criminal prosecution to House Democrats pursuing President Donald Trump’s removal from office, saying he no longer needed the court’s approval.Parnas said at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday that he was able to access the material directly from Apple Inc.’s iCloud without relying on a version produced by prosecutors.Parnas, who is charged with breaking campaign finance law, has been turning over evidence in his case to the House Intelligence Committee in response to a subpoena he received before he was arrested in October. He has provided Congress with two sets of evidence produced by prosecutors from his iPhone and earlier this month sought permission to disclose a third set from his iCloud account.Prosecutors and fellow defendants in his case objected, saying the new tranche could include information protected by attorney-client privilege.The dispute has revealed a broader rift between the defendants over how they approach the case. Parnas has gone on to give national television interviews accusing Trump of a scheme -- at the heart of the House’s impeachment inquiry and now the president’s Senate trial -- to trade American military aid to Ukraine for political dirt on Joe Biden, one of Trump’s leading rivals in this year’s election. Parnas’s main co-defendant, Igor Fruman, has largely stayed out of the limelight.Parnas’s lawyer, Joseph Bondy, said at the hearing that the two defendants have been divided since early November on whether to cooperate with the House impeachment probe.Parnas, Fruman and two other defendants are charged with laundering foreign funds in donating to U.S. political campaigns and masking the source of the contributions. Both have pleaded not guilty.The case is U.S. v. Parnas, 19-cr-725, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).Read More: Giuliani Allies Spar Over Giving Evidence to House DemocratsTo contact the reporter on this story: Christian Berthelsen in New York at cberthelsen1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter JeffreyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.