sides. this is going to be a trickier trial for prosecutors, and these three defendants have to be two different trials which is extraordinarily hard to do. we could see plea talks, if so they re going to have to happen soon because these trials are right around the corner. they are right around the corner. but we also had this series of ongoing justice department investigations. so what should we be looking for as we approach the new year? yeah, kaitlan, three very high profile doj investigations with potential political ramifications. matt gaetz, the congressman from florida, under investigation for potential sex trafficking crimes. we know they flipped his associate joe greenburg, but that was seven months ago. we have not heard anything since then. hunter biden announced he was under investigation for potential tax fraud crimes in delaware. if he s charged, that will create an unprecedented situation, imagine the son of the sitting president being prosecuted by doj. and rudy gi
ukrainian oligarch with ties to the russian mob, so they were, i think, trying to effectuate this really corrupt trade where they would get information from this ukrainian oligarch, manufactured dirt about joe biden that s not true, supply it to rudy giuliani who would supply it to the president of the united states, and in return, they were going to try to deliver for this ukrainian oligarch who is under indictment some kind of dismissal from the justice department or some kind of way for him to get out of his case. it is as corrupt as you can be and now you have both of them under indictment and rudy giuliani under investigation. you know, look, these aren t the first members of donald trump s legal team to go to jail. obviously, his former personal attorney went to jail. and i think you re right, if i were them, though, i would be much more scared of offending this ukrainian oligarch with ties to the russian mob than i would be federal prosecutors. matt miller, mimi rocah, thank y
about it given the sensitivities of, you know, who rudy giuliani is and who he s close to and who he might hear things from. i m not saying the southern district doesn t trust other people in the department of justice but, you know, you could just decide this we re putting a lid on this. i think what s interesting, though, one thing that s interesting about this statement that was put out by the department of justice, is they say had we known that giuliani s associates were under investigation, we wouldn t have met with giuliani. those two things don t necessarily follow. if associates of mine, and i m a defense attorney, are under investigation but i, you know, have nothing to do with that investigation, that doesn t there s no reason why i couldn t get a meeting with the department of justice. it s only if that investigation has to do with me. and remember, the southern district, the department of justice, has never officially confirmed that rudy giuliani is under investigation.
when assistant attorney general brian benczkowski and fraud section lawyers met with mr. giuliani, they were not aware of any investigation of mr. giuliani s associates in the southern district of new york and would not have met with him had they known. donald trump has claimed that he doesn t know the giuliani friends and associates who have been indicted in the investigation by the manhattan u.s. attorney but the lawyer for lev parnas and igor fruman told the house of representatives his clients could not testify to the impeachment investigation because among other reasons they were part of the trump legal defense team through their work with rudy giuliani. the wall street journal obtained access to lev parnas s private instagram account which shows he had regular access to president trump and rudy giuliani. on march 25th, just 1 day after attorney general william barr released his four-page memo of
united states. it s a very problematic situation. i think the thing i take away from the statement, though, is less about the underlying substance of the meeting and more about what s happening at the justice department. that was a very unusual statement for d.o.j. to make. and the thing that s sown usual it was just about the head of the criminal division. the a.d. did know, the deputy attorney general did know rudy was under investigation. but the statement reads to me like the head of the criminal division tried to distance himself from it. and i think what it says is there s something that we don t yet know about the department s involvement in the ukraine scandal. probably has to do with those early days when they squashed a full investigation. it was the head of the criminal investigation who s taken the heat for squashing that investigation. there s something i think we don t know that s still to come out and because of that everyone at the department is running as far and as fa