"It’s Giuliani who’s really dragged the president into something ... [that] will be part of impeachment"

And a senior Trump administration official said that Giuliani’s claim that the State Department “asked me” to look into Ukraine or initiated his interactions with Ukraine’s government is false.

The former senior White House official also said that Giuliani’s claim that he worked through the State Department to coordinate his talks is highly questionable. The former official said that Giuliani should have “nothing to do with any of this stuff” and that his involvement in pursuing a corruption investigation “makes it inherently political rather than official law enforcement.”

“It’s Giuliani who’s really dragged the president into something that’s a legal matter and a political matter and will be part of impeachment,” the former official said. “What Giuliani did, there’s no argument that it was a legitimate, government, law enforcement endeavor.”

Yet Trump, who is often quick to abandon even his most loyal allies when it becomes politically expedient, was notably supportive of Giuliani when asked about him during a meeting with Ukraine’s president on Wednesday. He even praised Giuliani’s recent appearances on television.