Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told Fox News on Tuesday night that he was personally asked by the State Department to contact Ukrainian officials and inquire about investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden. Reacting to a Washington Post report that revealed he had injected himself into the Trump administration’s foreign policy to pursue a “shadow Ukraine agenda,” Giuliani said, while holding up his cellphone: “You know who I did at the request of? The State Department.” “I never talked to a Ukrainian official until the State Department called me and asked me to do it. And then I reported every conversation back to them. Laura, I’m a pretty good lawyer, just a country lawyer, but it’s all right here, right here. The first call from the State Department.”

When asked by host Laura Ingraham why he was chosen instead of the FBI or Justice Department to investigate Ukrainian matters, Giuliani claimed it’s because “the FBI’s performance in the entire investigation including up to this moment is flawed.”