Government

Rudy Giuliani Denies Lobbying For Pardon. Also Denies Crime Spree.

And if ya can't trust Rudy Giuliani ...

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(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

How confident is Rudy Giuliani that his legal shenanigans are about to overturn the results of the presidential election?

According to the New York Times, he’s currently lobbying Individual 1 to grant him a pre-emptive pardon — not exactly a sign of confidence that Bill Barr will be heading up the Justice Department come February.

Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt’s sources say that Giuliani has discussed a pardon with President Trump within the past week.

First his spokeswoman Christianné Allen insisted that “Mayor Giuliani cannot comment on any discussions that he has with his client.” Although it’s not entirely clear how Trump could be “his client” when Rudy is negotiating a pardon for himself.

Then Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello downplayed the discussions, saying  “He’s not concerned about this investigation, because he didn’t do anything wrong and that’s been our position from Day 1.” And if anyone knows from pardon talks, it’s Robert Costello, whom Michael Cohen has accused of dangling a pardon to keep him on-side after he flipped on Trump.

Then Rudy weighed in to deny the whole thing, because apparently he can talk about it.

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Although, as Haberman points out on Twitter, Trump’s lawyer denied last week asking for a sky-high daily rate to do whatever it is he’s doing for the Trump campaign. “Giuliani also claimed his request for $20,000 a day from the campaign wasn’t true. It was in writing,” she wrote.

But what would Giuliani need a pardon for, anyway, particularly if he “didn’t do anything wrong?”

Well, how much time do you have?

There’s the investigation in the Southern District of New York into his relationship with his former associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who’ve been indicted for tax fraud and campaign finance violations.

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SDNY has also issued subpoenas to former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s firm regarding work Giuliani did to lobby the Romanian government. Giuliani declined to say who the ultimate client was, but the Freeh Group says it was hired in 2016 to “conduct an independent review” of the fraud conviction of Romanian-American real estate magnate Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu.

There’s potential liability for failing to register as a lobbyist under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, since Giuliani personally tried to get the Trump administration to deport cleric Fethullah Gülen at the behest of the Turkish government.

And speaking of FARA violations, there may be a whole mess of them in Ukraine. Giuliani, who routinely butt-dials reporters and had to get the Apple store to get him back into his own iPhone, described himself as a “security advisor” to the city of Kharkiv. His Ukrainian oligarch pal Pavel Fuchs described it differently, boasting that America’s Mayor “has a very positive attitude toward Ukraine, so he undertook to lobby for us.”

Similarly, it’s never been clear who bankrolled Giuliani’s work in Ukraine which led to Trump’s impeachment. In the spring of 2019, he was in negotiations with disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko to represent his interests at the Justice Department for $200,000-300,000. At the same time, Giuliani was working hand-in-glove with lawyers Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, who represented Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his effort to get out from under a fraud charge by the U.S. government.

So, yeah, he’s got some exposure.

Giuliani has always maintained that he represented his clients in a purely legal capacity, which would exempt him from FARA. Ask Paul Manafort (Georgetown Law ’74) how that one goes.

Countdown to an omnibus pardon in 3 … 2 …

Giuliani is said to have discussed a possible pardon with Trump. [NYT]
Inside Giuliani’s dual roles: Power-broker-for-hire and shadow foreign policy adviser [WaPo]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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