The daily beast

Federal government attacks Rudy Giuliani’s New York apartment in Ukraine Probe

Andrew Kelly / Reuters Federal authorities in Manhattan executed a search warrant on Rudy Giuliani’s Upper East Side apartment and office on Wednesday, marking a significant escalation in a criminal investigation into his Ukraine transactions. Investigators seized Giuliani’s electronics and searched his Madison Avenue apartment and Park Avenue office around 6 a.m. A law enforcement official confirmed to the Daily Beast that the federal government raided at Giuliani’s home.A search warrant was also executed at the home of attorney in Washington, DC Victoria Toensing, a former senior DOJ official and associate of Giuliani, who was involved in the effort to unearth Joe and Hunter Biden in Ukraine, the Times reported. According to ABC News, investigators only asked for her cell phone, which she handed over. The warrants suggest investigators are stepping up their investigation into whether Giuliani, former New York mayor and personal attorney for President Donald Trump, illegally pressured the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs in 2019, when ‘he chased away the dirt. on the Bidens. The Southern District of New York declined the Daily Beast’s request for comment. Details of the search warrant were not immediately available and inquiries to Giuliani and his lawyers were not returned. A tweet on Giuliani’s account said he read a statement live on the radio on Wednesday afternoon – but it was subsequently deleted and it never appeared on the air. Toensing’s law firm, diGenova & Toensing, said in a statement that she was “a former federal prosecutor and senior Justice Department official” who “would have been happy to hand over” anything relevant. “All they had to do was ask,” he said. “Ms. Toensing was told she was not the target of the investigation.” Georgia prosecutors are eyeing “ false statement ” charges against Rudy Giuliani and team attorney Giuliani, Robert Costello, told the Wall Street Journal that the search warrant was to seek communications between Giuliani and people like John Solomon, a columnist who was in communication with Giuliani about his efforts to get Ukraine to open investigations. during the Trump-Ukraine saga and the scandal of the last administration, Giuliani and Salomon coordinated enough that, one Saturday evening in April 2019, Giuliani sent the Daily Beast, unsolicited and unsolicited, a long post that read, “Edited draft of the column to be uploaded tomorrow at 7:00 am.” The rest of the post appeared to have been a cut and paste of an entire column, and included suggested headlines such as “From ukr prosecutors ainiens in the United States: why don’t you want our proofs on the Democrats? ” and “Ukrainians are arguing against Democrats, but does anyone in the United States care?” The text message also read “By John Solomon.” It was not clear why Giuliani was getting seemingly full previews of Solomon’s handwriting before it was published, and Giuliani claimed at the time that he obtained the unpublished article from someone other than Solomon, although he declined to say who. of a search warrant against Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, is “a huge development,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahman told The Daily Beast. “Federal search warrants for law firms or homes generally must be approved by senior Justice Department officials in Washington, DC due to the sensitive nature of attorney-client communications and attorneys’ work product, “Rahman said. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan reportedly tried to get a search warrant for Giuliani’s phones for months, but were stranded while Trump was in power. The DOJ reportedly lifted its objections once Merrick Garland was confirmed as Biden’s attorney general. “Also, like any search warrant, a district judge has found that there is probable cause that Giuliani’s apartment and electronic devices contain instruments of a crime,” Rahman said. “The next step is for a ‘corruption team’ to review the seized documents to ensure that federal agents and prosecutors who are actually conducting the investigation do not have access to any privileged material.” Another former federal law enforcement official told The Daily Beast that the warrants were probably executed “much later than investigators would have liked – this really is a perfect example of how the political interference in a criminal case leads to concrete legal problems. [since] when you waste six months it gives a person like Rudy a chance to do what I suspect he has already done, which is purge all his shit. Costello took a different point of view, telling The Times, “What they did today was legal brutality.” Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who was the Associate Attorney General, United States Attorney, New York Mayor, and Personal Advocate for the 45th President of the United States? . Lev Parnas: Trump’s Cronies Made Fun Of Him Behind Giuliani’s Close Great Friend, Former Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, told POLITICO he was on the phone with Giuliani as officers searched the house. He said he found it “worrying” that seven officers showed up despite Giuliani trying to cooperate with the federal government, through his lawyer, “for almost two years”. The investigation into Giuliani appears to be linked to charges against two of his former associates. , Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. In 2019, Parnas and Fruman were arrested by the FBI on independent campaign finance charges. An indictment by a Manhattan grand jury alleged, in part, that they participated in a scheme to oust the US ambassador to Ukraine “at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials And had helped funnel campaign donations from an unnamed outsider to American politicians, including a widely regarded lawmaker like Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX). (Sessions has not been charged with wrongdoing.) The Times subsequently reported that Manhattan federal prosecutors were investigating Giuliani in connection with the allegations. Prosecutors reportedly examined his possible involvement in the attempt to oust Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine – a push that was later raised during Trump’s first impeachment trial. They also reportedly investigated Giuliani’s possible business dealings in Ukraine and if he was working. with Ukrainian officials and businessmen both to push for the ouster of Yovanovich and to dig the dirt out of Trump’s political enemies. Foreign lobbying laws require individuals to tell the Justice Department s ‘They are lobbying the US government on behalf of foreign entities.Parnas and Fruman also paid Giuliani reported $ 500,000 for consulting work on a commercial firm, Fraud Guarantee, which was billed as a protection service against fraud. A complaint filed in 2021 by the SEC alleged that Parnas and Fruman “had misappropriated the majority of investor funds they had collected for the Fraud Guarantee in order to pay for personal expenses such as travel, luxury goods and personal expenses. cash withdrawals that cannot be found. ” Rudy: Only ’50/50’ Chance that I worked with a ‘Russian spy’ to dig dirt on Bidens and Ukraine In the months before the Trump-Ukraine scandal broke in the media and after the Release of the Mueller report, Giuliani frequently visited the White House to meet with Trump, including in the residence and the Oval Office – but so often those meetings would be private only for the two men and he was usually heard in the West Wing that they should not be disturbed, according to a former senior White House official. This caused recurring dismay among White House officials, who often struggled to understand exactly what the then president and his personal lawyer were discussing, and fueled the suspicions and concerns of White House lawyers. that Giuliani, with all that he brought to Trump, It wouldn’t take long for Giuliani and Trump to confirm these fears, with some of their discussions and activities leading directly to Trump’s first impeachment trial for alleged attempts to using foreign interference to strengthen The former law enforcement official told the Daily Beast of Wednesday, “An interesting board game is to think about how strategic this is and how it’s really about collecting information. ” things they would like to have but don’t necessarily need. They know the review won’t be over for a long time and I think they want to impeach before this review is over. Seems to me like something that’s going to be done shortly before they charge. For more, check out The Daily Beast. 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