oh lawd...inb4 no quid pro quo:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/18/politics/giuliani-shokin-state-visa-george-kent/index.html
Exclusive: Giuliani pushed Trump administration to grant a visa to a Ukrainian official promising dirt on Democrats
Washington (CNN)Career diplomat George Kent told congressional investigators in his closed-door testimony this week that Rudy Giuliani asked the State Department and the White House to grant a visa to the former Ukrainian official who Joe Biden had pushed to have removed when he was vice president, according to four people familiar with Kent's testimony.
Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, testified that around January 2019 Giuliani requested a visa for former Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin to travel to the United States. Shokin had been pushed out of his position as Ukraine's top prosecutor in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including Biden, over concerns that he was not pursuing corruption cases.
Giuliani has
previously told CNN he wanted to interview Shokin in person because the Ukrainian promised to reveal dirt on Democrats.
Kent told congressional investigators the State Department had objected to the request, and State did not grant the visa. Giuliani, Kent said, then appealed to the White House to have State reverse its decision. Shokin's visa was never granted, although Giuliani eventually spoke with Shokin over Skype.
Details from those interviews were included in a cache of documents Giuliani delivered to the State Department earlier this year, in hopes that the administration would investigate those claims. The State Department inspector general eventually
turned the documents over to congressional investigators.
According to a write-up of his interview with Shokin included in the documents, Giuliani claimed that Shokin "believes the current Ambassador Marie L.
Yovanovitch denied his visa" and noted that Yovanovitch was "close to Mr. Biden." In her recent testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Yovanovitch said she has met Biden "several times over the course of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or directly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me."
Giuliani's efforts to push a smear campaign against Yovanovitch ultimately led to her removal from her post in May.