Crazy Rudy digging a deeper hole

Yes, it can be real.  Rudy is nuts.

Just out of curiosity, the message appears to have been part of a group conversation with two people: "KV" - Volker (unpaid volunteer special envoy to Ukraine), who sent it, and "A".  I wonder who that is.

To hear Rudy Giuliani tell it, it was a phone call from the Trump administration's special envoy for Ukraine, Ambassador Kurt Volker, that jump-started Giuliani's contacts with Ukraine's new leaders over corruption and a possible investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.

But a whistleblower's complaint made public Thursday paints a different picture: One of Volker scrambling to "contain the damage" to national security inflicted by Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, and back-channeling with the Ukrainian leadership about how to navigate the conflicting messages that Giuliani and U.S. officials were sending.

"Nonsense," a defiant Giuliani told NBC News in an interview Thursday after the complaint was made public. "It's a provable lie."

  NBC

Which is apparently why Rudy posted the text.  The unpaid volunteer aspect of Volker's position may be a counter to Murphy's claim.  I don't know.  But then, who is "A"?

The State Department has acknowledged that it was Volker who put Giuliani “in direct contact” with Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, around the same time as Zelenskiy's call with Trump.

[...]

Whether Volker was acting on orders from Trump is unclear, and the State Department hasn't said why Volker made the introduction, other than that the Ukrainian aide requested it. But the introduction ultimately led to a meeting between Yermak and Giuliani in Spain that the whistleblower wrote was a "direct follow-up" to Trump's call.

[...]

But the State Department insists that Giuliani “does not speak on behalf of the U.S. government” and that he “acts in a personal capacity” as Trump’s lawyer.

Which Rudy has both denied and affirmed, depending on the direction of the attack on him.

In the NBC News interview, Giuliani said he did not receive a security clearance to meet with the Ukrainian aide in Spain.

Brilliant admission.

Another revelation from the complaint: The whistleblower said he heard from multiple U.S. officials starting in mid-May — long before Trump's call with Zelenskiy — that they were "deeply concerned" about Giuliani circumventing the national security decision process by engaging directly with Ukrainian officials and relaying messages to and from the U.S. government. The whistleblower said Volker and Sondland spoke to Giuliani "in an attempt to 'contain the damage' to U.S. national security."

[...]

In the newly released complaint, the whistleblower says that the day after Trump's July call with Zelenskiy, Volker traveled to the Ukrainian capital to meet with Zelenskiy along with the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland. Giuliani has previously named Sondland as the other U.S. diplomat he coordinated with on his efforts in Ukraine.

The whistleblower says that multiple U.S. officials told him or her that Volker and Sondland "provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to 'navigate' the demands that the president had made of Mr. Zelenskiy." Volker and Sondland, according to the whistleblower, also gave advice on how to "understand and respond to the differing messages they were receiving" from Giuliani versus U.S. officials who represent the United States on Ukraine issues.

That could certainly constitute damage control. Volker could both have set up a meeting for Giuliani and scrambled to contain the damage. He may not have known what Rudy was up to when he set up the meeting. Whatever the reality of that is, attacking the whistleblower's credibility is all they've got, and that is the thinnest of gruel. The one thing it will do in their favor is deter other whistleblower's.

And, something else that might prove salient about Volker...

He’s also continued to work as a “senior international adviser” at his old lobbying firm, BGR Group, whose website touts Volker’s “deep European experience and relationships at the top levels of the trans-Atlantic diplomatic and policy communities.”

BGR Group’s lobbying clients include numerous foreign governments, including Somalia and Bahrain. The group worked for Saudi Arabia until terminating the contract last year after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, lobbying records show.

The firm, founded by former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, also continued to work for Ukraine long after Volker became the special representative. Ukraine’s government paid BGR Group $600,000 in 2017 for work on behalf of the National Reforms Council of Ukraine, under the Ukrainian presidency, and another $300,000 in 2018, Senate records show.

In fact, Volker’s firm did not stop working for the Ukraine government until this year, when the government changed after Zelenskiy’s election.

There are no indications of impropriety by Volker or evidence that his work at BGR Group has involved Ukraine, which would be prohibited under criminal conflicts of interest laws. Still, ethics experts said the highly unusual arrangement risks the appearance of impropriety unless Volker and the government took concrete steps to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

[...]

[T]he State Department declined to elaborate on what steps Volker and the department’s lawyers took to avoid conflicts, or to say how much time Volker spends working for the government and whether the State Department feels a part-time Ukraine envoy is sufficient given escalating tensions with Russia.

The State Department also would not comment on why Volker’s official biography says he “previously served” at BGR Group. Volker’s bio on the State Department website does not mention he’s still actively employed by BGR Group.

[...]

In December 2017, months after Volker started as the Ukraine representative, the Trump administration agreed to sell weapons to Ukraine, including Javelin anti-tank missiles. In his June call with Trump, the Ukrainian president told Trump he was “almost ready” to buy even more Javelins from the U.S. — just before Trump interjected to say he would “like you to do us a favor, though” — investigate Biden.

Massachusetts-based Raytheon makes the Javelin missiles in partnership with Lockheed Martin. Raytheon is also a client of BGR Group, which lobbied for the defense contractor on “defense appropriations and authorizations” for more than a decade. Senate records show Raytheon paid BGR Group about $120,000 per year until ending the contract at the end of 2018.

BGR Group would not say what accounts Volker works on or whether any firewall was set up to ensure no overlap between the group’s work for the government of Ukraine and Volker’s work as the U.S. special representative.

Government business as usual.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.