Government

Rudy Gets Raided

Imagine the former prosecutor's surprise at discovering the feds using aggressive investigative tactics!

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(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Is it a big deal when the feds raid a lawyer’s office and seize all his electronic devices? Asking for Rudy Giuliani, who got a visit from his friendly neighborhood FBI agent this morning and will finally quit texting reporters for at least as long as it takes him to get down to the Apple store and set up a new phone.

In fact, he got two visits, since agents knocked on the door at both his apartment and his office, the New York Times was first to report. But don’t worry, Rudy’ll be back to providing wildly incriminating copy in no time — it’s not like he can stop himself..

The Southern District of New York has been scrutinizing the president’s free lawyer for years, focusing on his business dealings in Ukraine, hamhanded efforts to gin up dirt on President Biden and his son Hunter, and a more successful attempt to get the American government to fire our Ukrainian ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch.

Along the way, Giuliani negotiated but did not execute an agreement with the sitting Ukrainian chief prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, to be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to locate stolen assets — apparently the $7 billion Giuliani fantasized that Biden absconded with using a publicly traded Franklin Templeton global bond fund.

Lutsenko loathed Yovanovitch, who backed anti-corruption forces in Ukraine, much to his consternation. The ambassador was also viewed as an obstacle to Russia-friendly oligarchs and their American allies, including Guiliani’s recently indicted buddies Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who sought to remake the board of Ukraine’s state-owned oil company for their own enrichment.

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Whether or not Giuliani got paid directly by the Ukrainian government, he vigorously applied himself to advocating for Lutsenko’s goals. This is perhaps why career DOJ officials were prepared to go after him for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

But they were blocked by Bill Barr and other political appointees at Main Justice, who effectively protected the president’s lawyer for more than a year. Before the election, investigators were put off because any public pursuit of Guiliani might affect the vote. And after November, as Guiliani spearheaded efforts to get the election results overturned, DOJ bigwigs continued to drag their heels.

With Merrick Garland at its head now, the DOJ is finally willing to move. And so was the magistrate judge, who found probable cause to believe that there was evidence of a crime in Rudy’s office.

But Giuliani’s lawyer Robert Costello, of Garth Brooks pardon dangle fame, is incensed that the Department wouldn’t agree to interview his client and simply take his word for it that no crimes were committed.

“What they did today was legal thuggery,” he huffed to the Times. “Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who was the associate attorney general, United States attorney, the mayor of New York City and the personal lawyer to the 45th president of the United States.”

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DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM?

Well, yes, we do. Rudy’s the guy who elevated the perp walk to high art and dispatched the NYPD to engage in hundreds of thousands of illegal searches in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Which makes it even more remarkable that a judge approved this warrant. But keep talking — or better yet, tweet through the pain, fella.

Federal Investigators Search Rudy Giuliani’s Apartment and Office [NYT]

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

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