Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, says he met Ukrainian officials in Madrid, Paris and Warsaw this year as he pushed an investigation into one of Trump's main political rivals in the 2020 presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Giuliani has emerged as a central figure in a scandal that has now engulfed Trump and left him facing an impeachment inquiry into whether he misused his office for his own political gains.

One of the key questions is who financed Giuliani's globe-trotting as he pursued unsubstantiated allegations that Biden had tried to fire Ukraine's then chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to stop him investigating an energy company on which his son, Hunter, served as a director.