Several U.S. media outlets reported Wednesday that federal police raided the New York residence of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as part of an investigation into his activities in Ukraine.
According to the New York Times, citing anonymous sources, federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained a search warrant for his apartment in the Upper East Side area, and “electronic devices” were seized. This type of seizure is very rare for a lawyer.
Contacted, neither Manhattan prosecutors nor the FBI confirmed the information.
According to Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, the search was for “legal robbery.”
“Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who has served as a lawyer, mayor of New York, and personal lawyer for the 45th president of the United States,” he told the New York Times.
Federal prosecutors in Ukraine said Mr. Giuliani’s campaigning has been under investigation for months, and in particular Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and former Manhattan federal lawyer are likely to intervene with the Trump administration in 2019. To several media outlets on behalf of Ukrainian officials and businessmen.
Mr. Giuliani, 76, has not been charged and prosecutors have never officially spoken out about the investigation.
But in the fall of 2019, he found himself at the heart of the Ukrainian scandal that rocked Trump’s presidency. Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to persuade Kiev to provide conciliatory information about Joe Biden later came to light and helped bring the US president to the brink of indictment.
Mr. Prosecutors have previously sought to obtain a search warrant for Giuliani’s phones under the Trump administration, but senior judicial officials have opposed it, according to several media reports.
Two men who worked for Giuliani in Ukraine for violating campaign finance laws, Lev Barnes and Igor Fruman, were indicted in New York in late 2019. Their trial is scheduled for October.
Last January, the U.S. Treasury aided four Ukrainians in Rudy Giuliani’s efforts, accusing them of electoral interference.
In recent months, Rudy Giuliani has been one of the strongest supporters of Donald Trump, and his claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in favor of his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.
Michael Cohen, a former personal lawyer for Donald Trump, has been charged with tax evasion and election finance violations. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison at the end of 2018.
“Social mediaholic. Tv fanatic. Gamer. Professional explorer. Amateur music junkie.”