Rudy Giuliani threatens to ‘do demonstrations and lectures’ at Trump impeachment trial

Lawyer also claims he could try the case on behalf of the president, but admits it would take ‘courage’ to put him in charge

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has vowed to defend his client during the forthcoming impeachment trial any way he can – including by giving “lectures” and doing “demonstrations” in the Senate.

Speaking at the US president’s New Year’s Eve party at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr Giuliani also suggested he could still try the case on behalf of Mr Trump.

Asked reporters if he would testify at the trial, the lawyer said: “I would testify, I would do demonstrations, I’d give lectures, I’d give summations.

“Or, I’d do what I do best, I’d try the case – I’d love to try the case,” Mr Giuliani added.

“I don’t know if anybody would have the courage to give me the case. But if you give me the case, I would prosecute it as a racketeering case, which I kind of invented anyway … let’s see if I could still do it.”

The former mayor of New York City mayor, who previously served as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mr Giuliani has become a central figure in the impeachment drama in Washington.

The impeachment investigation followed allegations first made by a whistleblower, that Mr Trump sought a quid pro quo in a July phone call with Ukraine’s newly elected leader Volodymyr Zelensky, for the provision of military aid and a visit to Washington DC.

The personal attorney’s reference to “racketeering” suggest the president’s lawyer would continue to make accusations related to work Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden did in Ukraine.

Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani at the Mar-a-Lago resort (Reuters)

Yet Mr Giuliani’s own recent trip to Ukraine on an apparent fact-finding mission has come under scrutiny.

He is accused of ending the career of a US diplomat because her presence in Ukraine interfered with his private efforts to press officials to launch an investigation into the Democrat candidate Mr Biden.

During testimony before Congress last month, Marie Yovanovitch claimed Mr Giuliani was behind a “campaign of disinformation” that led to her being recalled early from Kiev.

“I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,” Mr Giuliani told The New Yorker. “She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.”

He also admitted he had passed on “gossip” about Ms Yovanovitch. “I may or may not have passed along the general gossip that the embassy was considered to be a kind of out-of-control politically partisan embassy,” he told The New York Times.

The controversial figure also recently claimed he was “more of a Jew” than financier and Holocaust survivor George Soros.

A spokesperson for Mr Soros’ Open Society Foundation Laura Silber called the claims “contemptible”.