Daily Beast: “A years-old relic of the Trump-Ukraine scandal – a dossier that was aggressively promoted by Rudy Giuliani – is coming back to haunt him, just as federal law enforcement has ramped up its investigation into the former New York City mayor. The dossier, a collection of documents centered with wild corruption accusations against Joe Biden, Marie Yovanovitch, and other officials, was widely and almost instantly dismissed as irrelevant ramblings, conspiracy theories, and political smears when it emerged in 2019. But Giuliani pushed it anyway to the highest echelons of the Trump White House and to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Now, his efforts have been scrutinized by federal investigators, according to two people familiar with the matter. In a probe that began during former President Donald Trump’s time in power, the feds have been investigating whether some of Giuliani’s activities during the Trump-Ukraine saga amounted to unregistered and illegal lobbying on behalf of foreign figures.”
“Giuliani’s legal team did not respond to requests for comment on this story. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York declined to comment. But Giuliani’s pushing of the dossier is one of a number of activities under investigation by federal law enforcement. The document reportedly prompted intrigue followed by disappointment when the State Department turned it over to House impeachment investigators. In late 2019 during the Trump-Ukraine scandal, The New Yorker, which obtained a copy of the dossier, described one of its allegations as a byzantine conspiracy theory in which the U.S.-backed creation of NABU – Ukraine’s anti-corruption prosecutors – in 2014 was somehow a scheme concocted by Ambassador Yovanovitch and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent to prevent Ukraine from investigating the Bidens. In another allegation described by the magazine, the dossier casts right wing boogeyman and liberal philanthropist George Soros as the orchestrator of Yovanovitch’s appointment as U.S. ambassador in Kyiv.”