“Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating whether Rudy Giuliani stood to personally profit from a Ukrainian natural-gas business pushed by two associates who also aided his efforts there to launch investigations that could benefit President Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

NBC News: “Giuliani can be heard discussing overseas dealings and lamenting the need for cash, though it’s difficult to discern the full context of the conversation. The call appeared to be one of the most unfortunate of faux pas: what is known, in casual parlance, as a butt dial.”

And then he did it again the next day.

“In the message, Giuliani is heard talking to at least one other person. The conversation appears to pick up almost exactly where Giuliani’s phone call with the reporter left off the day before, with Giuliani insisting he was the target of attacks because he was making public accusations about a powerful Democratic politician… Giuliani spends the entire three minutes railing against the Bidens. He can be heard recycling many of the unfounded allegations he has been making on cable news and in interviews with print reporters.”

Rudy Giuliani “refused to say what sort of agreement, if any, he has with President Trump to act as his lawyer,” BuzzFeed News reports.

Said Giuliani: “If I did, I wouldn’t show it to you, and what right do you have to ask me that? I’m a private lawyer. I could have a handshake with him. I don’t have to tell you what the basis of my attorney-client relationship is.”

“The nature of Giuliani’s work for Trump is central to how Congressional investigators are able to gather information from Giuliani. If Giuliani has been working as the president’s personal lawyer, he could claim attorney-client privilege over his communications with the president… But there are exceptions to that privilege, and Giuliani himself recently told The Atlantic, ‘I’m not acting as a lawyer.'”

John Cassidy: “If this was a dystopian thriller, one could imagine Giuliani as an undercover saboteur, who was ordered to embed himself as deeply as possible within Team Trump and then bide his time. In 2016, he proved his bona fides with Trump by publicly defending him after the appearance of the Access Hollywood tape, and then he accompanied Trump on his final campaign swing. In 2018, after Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel, Giuliani reappeared as the public face of the President’s legal-defense team. With other lawyers conducting most of the actual legal work, he had plenty of time for pursuing other projects, including a certain oppo-research effort in Kiev. And what a job he made of it.”

“Giuliani isn’t an undercover operative, of course. He’s a retired politician who couldn’t bear to be out of the spotlight and who saw, in Trump’s rise, a way to get back on the stage. He’s also a rich security consultant, whose clients include Eastern European moguls with ties to the Ukrainian government. In promoting to Trump the unfounded theory that Biden blackmailed Ukraine’s government to protect his son, these two streams in Giuliani’s life came together. And you have to give him some credit, at least, for knowing his client. Outside the confines of 4chan, there is probably nobody in America more partial to conspiracy theories than Trump.”

NBC News: “Giuliani’s role in the scandal that has triggered an impeachment inquiry is still coming into focus. But several legal experts who used to work with the former U.S. attorney-turned New York City mayor-turned chief President Trump defender told NBC News they believe his conduct likely broke the law.”

Elaina Plott spoke to Rudy Giuliani following the release of the whistleblower report and “he was, put simply, very angry.”

Said Giuliani: “It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I’m not. And I will be the hero! These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero.”

He added: “I’m not acting as a lawyer. I’m acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government. Anything I did should be praised.”

“Giuliani then unleashed a rant about the Bidens, Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, Barack Obama, the media, and the ‘deep state.'”

Rudy Giuliani told CNN he has “no knowledge of any of that crap” in the newly-released complaint from an American intelligence community whistleblower.

Asked about details from the complaint that multiple US officials were “deeply concerned” about his activities speaking with Ukrainian officials and nationals, Giuliani called the charge “total nonsense.”

Three U.S. House of Representatives committees said on Monday they had begun “a wide-ranging investigation” into reports that President Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and possibly others pressured Ukraine’s government to assist Trump’s re-election campaign, Reuters reports.

“It’s like waiting for a baby… If the report is good, I’ll give out cigars.”

— Rudy Giuliani, quoted by the Washington Post, on the pending Mueller report.

Daily Beast: “Rudy Giuliani and estranged wife Judith Nathan Giuliani’s divorce has hit such a high level of bitterness that a judge told them not to be in the same room if they run into each other at social clubs.”