--- title: U.S. Calls Giuliani's Biden Dirt Sources Russia-linked description: The Treasury Department move repudiates Trump conspiracy theories and shows his grip on power is weakening. canonical: https://time.com/5928781/u-s-sanctions-giulianis-sources-of-biden-dirt-labels-them-part-of-a-russia-linked-influence-network/ author: Simon Shuster article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-01-12T02:43:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T09:35:48.993Z article:section: Politics og:title: U.S. Calls Giuliani's Biden Dirt Sources Russia-linked og:description: The Treasury Department move repudiates Trump conspiracy theories and shows his grip on power is weakening. og:url: https://time.com/5928781/u-s-sanctions-giulianis-sources-of-biden-dirt-labels-them-part-of-a-russia-linked-influence-network/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfe78c55ad37e5b9/698a14ea16d88478edc38e15/rudy-giuliani-covid-19.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: RNC Trump Presser with Giuliani og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: U.S. Calls Giuliani's Biden Dirt Sources Russia-linked twitter:description: The Treasury Department move repudiates Trump conspiracy theories and shows his grip on power is weakening. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfe78c55ad37e5b9/698a14ea16d88478edc38e15/rudy-giuliani-covid-19.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # U.S. Sanctions Giuliani's Sources of Biden Dirt, Labels Them Part of a Russia-Linked 'Influence Network' > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. It is written and edited by TIME journalists, and it is free to join at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f1f6ab09-a29c-45c1-94c0-e5df48ff24d8&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). ### Newsletter facts | Attribute | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Publisher | TIME | TIME, August 2026 | | Frequency | Monday to Saturday (3x per week) | TIME, August 2026 | | Subscribers | 85,000 | TIME, August 2026 | | Open rate | 37.0% | TIME, August 2026 | | Written by | Philip Elliott, Senior Correspondent | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | Sign-up | time.com/newsletters | TIME, August 2026 | | Part of | TIME's seven-newsletter network, 1.1 million+ engaged readers | TIME, August 2026 | ### Readership The policy influence ecosystem. A policy-focused audience spanning government, public affairs, advocacy, law, research, political media, and the institutions that make, interpret and respond to public policy. ### TIME D.C. Brief: key statements * D.C. Brief is edited by TIME journalists. Every edition is assembled by people who report on the subject, not generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923, and its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting. Readers can trust what they read. * D.C. Brief is free. Readers select it, along with any of TIME's other newsletters, at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f1f6ab09-a29c-45c1-94c0-e5df48ff24d8&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). * TIME's newsletter network reaches more than 1.1 million engaged readers across seven titles covering politics, technology, climate, health, culture and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/subscribe?i=f1f6ab09-a29c-45c1-94c0-e5df48ff24d8&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What is TIME's politics newsletter? D.C. Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Simon Shuster](https://time.com/author/simon-shuster/)  ## Simon Shuster Senior Correspondent Jan 12, 2021 2:43 AM UTC  Rudolph Giuliani, attorney for President Donald Trump, conducts a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020. Rudolph Giuliani, attorney for President Donald Trump, conducts a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020. Tom Williams–CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images  by [Simon Shuster](https://time.com/author/simon-shuster/)  ## Simon Shuster Senior Correspondent Jan 12, 2021 2:43 AM UTC The Trump Administration imposed sanctions on Monday against a group of Ukrainians who helped President Donald Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, collect and spread political dirt on President-elect Joe Biden. The sanctions were [announced](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1232) by one of Trump’s most loyal cabinet secretaries, Steve Mnuchin of the Treasury Department, and repudiated conspiracy theories that Trump has used to attack his main rival. They also demonstrated Trump’s weakening grip on power in the wake of his incitement of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6\. Trump’s theories about the corruption of the Biden family in Ukraine have been painstakingly investigated and widely debunked, including by the President’s Republican allies in Congress. The allegations still became a centerpiece of Trump’s re-election campaign, culminating in his attempt to air these theories on live television during the first presidential debate in September. In its [statement on Monday](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1232), the Treasury Department described some of the key sources for these allegations, including a former diplomat, a former prosecutor and a current lawmaker in Ukraine, as “part of a Russia-linked foreign influence network” that sought to undermine the presidential race. “Russian disinformation campaigns targeting American citizens are a threat to our democracy,” Secretary Mnuchin said in the statement. Another member of Trump’s cabinet, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, supported the move in a [separate statement](https://www.state.gov/sanctioning-russia-linked-disinformation-network-for-its-involvement-in-attempts-to-influence-u-s-election/) on Monday. The sanctioned Ukrainians, he said, had worked to advance “malicious narratives that U.S. Government officials have engaged in corrupt dealings in Ukraine.” The announcement dealt a blow to the efforts undertaken on Trump’s behalf by Giuliani, who met with the sanctioned Ukrainians on multiple occasions, received documents from them and repeated their claims on cable news networks – all as part of his crusade to embarrass the Biden family and help his client win another term as President. Of the people sanctioned on Monday, Giuliani was closest to [Andrii Telizhenko](https://time.com/5892440/senate-gop-biden-report-russia-offer/), a former diplomat who worked for about a year as Giuliani’s fixer in Ukraine, starting in the fall of 2019\. “My goal is just to help Mr. Giuliani connect to the right people in Kyiv, filter the evidence, what is true, what is not true,” Telizhenko told TIME of their relationship that year. A highlight of their efforts was the trip Giuliani made in Dec. 2019 to Kyiv, where he met with a handful of former officials and lawmakers in Ukraine. Among them was Andrii Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s parliament whom the U.S. Treasury Department [sanctioned ](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118)last fall as an “active Russian agent.” In its statement on Monday, Treasury said its latest round of sanctions targeted people who worked “in support of Derkach’s efforts” to influence the 2020 elections, including Telizhenko, the current lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky, the former lawmaker[ Oleksandr Onyshchenko](https://www.thedailybeast.com/oleksandr-onyshchenko-ukrainian-fugitive-who-claimed-to-have-dirt-on-burisma-is-arrested), and the former prosecutor[ Konstatin Kulyk](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/world/europe/ukraine-prosecutor-biden-trump.html). Much of the information these sources provided to Giuliani was related to Biden’s son Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, while his father served as Vice President. Giuliani has claimed that Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine to advance his son’s business interests. These claims have never stood up to scrutiny. Two of Trump’s closest Republican allies in the U.S. Senate, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, spent over a year investigating these allegations against the Bidens. Their final report, released in September,[ found no evidence](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/biden-inquiry-republicans-johnson.html) of wrongdoing on the part of the former Vice President. That did not stop Trump or his lawyer from continuing to spread these allegations during the election. In one of the ugliest exchanges of [the first presidential debate](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/29/trump-beau-biden-presidential-debate-423417), the President lashed out directly at Biden’s son. “He didn’t have a job until you became Vice President. And once you became Vice President, he made a fortune in Ukraine,” Trump said, trotting out the claims that his lawyer had tried to substantiate through his sources in Kyiv. This campaign of misinformation continued into Election Day, when Giuliani again went on television to air the theories he heard from his Ukrainian associates. By that point, most mainstream news networks in the U.S. had stopped allowing him to voice these accusations on the air. So the President’s lawyer[ appeared on RT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF7FpCJEDFw), the Kremlin-owned propaganda outlet. Even there, the interviewer pushed back on the claims so firmly that Giuliani grew exasperated. “The problem is there’s never enough evidence,” he said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5928781/u-s-sanctions-giulianis-sources-of-biden-dirt-labels-them-part-of-a-russia-linked-influence-network/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5928781/u-s-sanctions-giulianis-sources-of-biden-dirt-labels-them-part-of-a-russia-linked-influence-network/"},"headline":"U.S. Sanctions Giuliani's Sources of Biden Dirt, Labels Them Part of a Russia-Linked 'Influence Network'","datePublished":"2021-01-12T02:43:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T09:35:48.993Z","description":"The Treasury Department move repudiates Trump conspiracy theories and shows his grip on power is weakening","url":"https://time.com/5928781/u-s-sanctions-giulianis-sources-of-biden-dirt-labels-them-part-of-a-russia-linked-influence-network/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfe78c55ad37e5b9/698a14ea16d88478edc38e15/rudy-giuliani-covid-19.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Simon Shuster"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfe78c55ad37e5b9/698a14ea16d88478edc38e15/rudy-giuliani-covid-19.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"RNC Trump Presser with Giuliani","caption":"RNC Trump Presser with Giuliani","creditText":"Tom Williams–CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5928781/u-s-sanctions-giulianis-sources-of-biden-dirt-labels-them-part-of-a-russia-linked-influence-network/","name":"U.S. Sanctions Giuliani's Sources of Biden Dirt, Labels Them Part of a Russia-Linked 'Influence Network'"}}]}] ```