Washington energy Secretary Rick Perry said he spoke with President Donald trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on behalf of the President this spring about alleged Ukrainian corruption, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

In his first interview, about the escalating Ukraine scandal, Perry told the publication that at trump’s direction, he called Giuliani, trump’s personal lawyer, in search of a better understanding of trump’s problems in Ukraine.

“And Recalling the conversation, he said,’ Look, the President is really concerned that there are people in Ukraine who tried to defeat him during this presidential election, ‘” Perry said of his conversation with Giuliani. “He thinks they’re corrupt and … that There are still people out there who are absolutely corrupt.”

Perry told the newspaper that Giuliani made no explicit demands on the call – “Rudy didn’t say they should do X, Y and No” – but blamed Ukraine for Steele’s dossier on trump’s alleged ties to Russia, claimed the country had former Secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s Email server and linked Ukraine to unsubstantiated evidence that helped send trump’s former campaign chief Paul Manafort to prison.

“I don’t know if it was shit or what,” Perry told the magazine, ” but I’m just saying there were three things he said. That’s why the President doesn’t trust these guys.”

Giuliani recalled his conversation with Perry in the magazine, saying, ” Everything I said there, I probably said on television 50 times.”

Perry’s description of his conversation with Giuliani builds on previous CNN reports that trump told Perry and two senior state Department officials to deal with Giuliani when the Ukrainian President tried to meet with trump – an apparent bypass of official channels, According to two sources familiar with the conversation.

Trump believes Ukraine is still rampantly corrupt, and has said that if Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky wants to meet with him, Giuliani will need to be convinced first, one of the sources said.

“If they can satisfy Rudy, they can satisfy the President,” a person familiar with the meeting told CNN.

Perry has found himself one of the players at the center of the Ukraine controversy stemming from whistleblower allegations that trump asked Zelensky earlier this year to investigate former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his family, and that the White house tried to cover up the conversation.

Perry was one of what one official called the “three Amigos” of leading U.S. relations with that country, meeting at least three times with Zelensky.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing in Ukraine by either Biden or his son, hunter Biden.

In an interview with the magazine, Perry denied recent reports that he was preparing to leave trump’s Cabinet, but did not specify whether he would remain at the energy Department after thanksgiving.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I work at the will of the President, as always.”

CNN’s Arlette Saenz, Renee Marsh and Gregory Wallace contributed to this report.