Rudy Giuliani’s Apartment Raided by Federal Agents in Ongoing Probe

by ian

Ian Patrick, FISM News

 

Former New York City mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani had his apartment raided by federal agents on April 28. The raid was executed with a search warrant for all electronic devices from his apartment and office, both in Manhattan, in an escalation to an ongoing probe into Giuliani.

The probe was opened in 2019 to look into the former mayor’s dealings in Ukraine, where he spoke with Ukrainian officials and lawyers to investigate the actions of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden within the country. According to Reuters, the initial subpoena said the prosecution is “investigating money laundering, wire fraud, campaign finance violations, making false statements, obstruction of justice, and violations of the federal Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).”

Giuliani and his lawyer, Bob Costello, repeatedly said that they told the Department of Justice of their willingness to comply but that their calls for cooperation fell on deaf ears. According to a statement released by Costello on Giuliani’s behalf:

The search warrants involve only one indication of an alleged incident of failure to register as a foreign agent. Mayor Giuliani has not only denied this allegation, but offered twice in the past two years through his attorney Bob Costello to demonstrate that it is entirely untrue.  Twice the offer was rejected by the SDNY by stating that while they were willing to listen to anything Mr. Costello had to say, they would not tell Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Costello, the subject matter they wanted him to address.

Costello also said that the Southern District of New York had tried to get approval for a search warrant against Giuliani two other times, but were denied. He alleges that the change in heart is because of “a new Administration – a new Attorney General.” He also suggests that the new Justice Department had not known of their previous attempts to sit down with the feds to speak with them on the matter.

The FBI seized all types of electronics from his apartment and office including his cell phone, computers, and laptops. They also seized electronics from the home of Victoria Toensing, a lawyer linked to Giuliani who had represented a Ukrainian oligarch indicted for bribery and racketeering.

Costello writes about the assets seized:

The electronics taken are, also, replete with the material covered by the attorney-client privilege and other constitutional privileges. The warrant served on Mr. Giuliani’s law office is another disturbing example of complete disregard for the attorney-client privilege protected by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.

The agents did not seize three hard drives supposedly containing information on Hunter Biden’s criminal activity in Ukraine, according to Costello. Giuliani reportedly offered the hard drives multiple times, but the agents “took Mr. Giuliani’s word that the hard drives were copies of Hunter Biden’s hard drive and did not contain anything pertaining to Mr. Giuliani.” Both Costello and Giuliani assert that the agents’ trust in Giuliani that these hard drives related not to himself but to Hunter Biden, and subsequently denied taking them in their raid, shows an unethical stance into this probe.

Giuliani himself talked with Tucker Carlson on his Fox News program to discuss the raid, even going so far as to say that the warrant itself was “illegal” and “unconstitutional.”

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