FBI warned Rudy Giuliani directly of Russian influence campaign

Rudy Giuliani was warned by the FBI in late 2019 that he was the target of a Russian influence operation intended to damage now-President Joe Biden in the 2020 election by spreading falsehoods, The Washington Post reported on Thursday night.

Despite the reported warning, which Mr Giuliani denies receiving, the former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump continued on his mission to find damaging information on Trump's 2020 election opponent Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

He met with Kremlin-tied associates who were attempting to influence the 2020 election, and publicly pushed misleading and unsubstantiated claims that were part of a Russia disinformation campaign.

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CNN has not confirmed the report. Sources familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN that the Trump White House was warned that some of the information being passed to Mr Giuliani was from foreign intelligence, and some members of Congress also were warned by FBI counterintelligence.

Mr Giuliani's attorney, Robert Costello, denied that Mr Giuliani was warned about the Russian intelligence effort.

"This story is totally false according to Mayor Giuliani. He never received any such briefing," Mr Costello told CNN.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment to the newspaper.

Mr Giuliani has been the focus of an investigation concerning his activities in Ukraine, including whether he conducted illegal lobbying for Ukrainian officials while he pursued an investigation linked to now-President Biden, CNN has reported.

Mr Giuliani hasn't been charged and has denied wrongdoing. On Wednesday, federal agents executed search warrants at Mr Giuliani's Manhattan apartment and office, and people familiar with the matter tell CNN the probe is now focused primarily on Mr Giuliani's Ukraine-linked activities.

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The Post reported that the FBI also gave a "defensive briefing" last August to Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who, as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security committee at the time, was leading an investigation into the Bidens for Hunter Biden's role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

In the report that Mr Johnson and Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, issued last year on their investigation, they said they were briefed by the FBI. But they argued that the briefings were not an effort to discourage them from conducting their investigation.

The Republicans wrote that the FBI briefed the committees in March 2020 and briefed Mr Johnson and Mr Grassley in August. "On August 6, 2020, Chairman Grassley and Chairman Johnson received another briefing from the FBI on behalf of the IC, in which the FBI stated that it is not attempting to 'quash, curtail, or interfere' in the investigation in any way," the report says.

In a statement, Mr Johnson confirmed to CNN that he received a defensive briefing from the FBI.

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"Regarding reports that I received an FBI briefing warning me that I was a target of Russian disinformation, I can confirm I received such a briefing in August of 2020," the Wisconsin Republican said.

"I asked the briefers what specific evidence they had regarding this warning, and they could not provide me anything other than the generalised warning. Without specific information, I felt the briefing was completely useless and unnecessary (since I was fully aware of the dangers of Russian disinformation).

"Because there was no substance to the briefing, and because it followed the production and leaking of a false intelligence product by Democrat leaders, I suspected that the briefing was being given to be used at some future date for the purpose that it is now being used: to offer the biased media an opportunity to falsely accuse me of being a tool of Russia despite warnings," Mr Johnson added. "To this day, I have not been told who ordered the completely unnecessary — but politically useful to my opponents — briefing."

Democrats warned in a letter last year to the FBI that Mr Johnson was being sent information from entities with ties to Russia as part of a disinformation campaign targeting Mr Biden. Mr Johnson and Mr Grassley disputed this, accusing Democrats of spreading disinformation.

CNN has previously reported that Mr Giuliani and other allies of the former President publicly aligned with Kremlin-linked figures, even as the US government warned that they were spreading lies.

The Trump White House was warned in 2019 that Mr Giuliani "was being used to feed Russian misinformation" to the President, which the Post first reported in October 2020.

US intelligence agencies warned the White House that Mr Giuliani "was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence" in which Mr Trump was the intended recipient of the misinformation, according to the newspaper.

Despite the FBI's warning in 2019, Mr Giuliani still decided to travel to Ukraine in December 2019, the Post reported, where he met with Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker that the Trump administration in September deemed an "active Russian agent" and sanctioned for attempting to influence the election.

The US intelligence community had previously singled Mr Derkach out for assisting in Moscow's efforts to try and weaken Biden in the election. Mr Giuliani had collaborated with Mr Derkach to spread anti-Biden material during Trump's first impeachment trial.

Democrats have also charged that Mr Derkach sent information to Mr Johnson, who had denied receiving anything from Mr Derkach and instead accused Democrats of themselves spreading Russian disinformation with the allegation.

The US intelligence community said in a landmark report in March that the Russian government meddled in the 2020 election with an influence campaign "denigrating" Mr Biden and "supporting" Mr Trump.

"A key element of Moscow's strategy this election cycle was its use of proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives -- including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden -- to US media organisations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration," the report said.