The apartment and offices of Trump’s personal lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in Manhattan, New York, were raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently. Giuliani’s lawyer revealed on April 30 that the FBI was looking for information involving the firing of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
According to the Epoch Times, the FBI entered Giuliani’s apartment on Madison Avenue and his office on Park Avenue at 6 a.m. on April 28 with a court warrant.
Investigators are understood to have confiscated Giuliani’s electronics, including his cell phone. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has been investigating Giuliani’s business dealings with Ukraine since 2019. The FBI declined to respond to the incident.
Media previously reported that Giuliani had a hard drive of information about Hunter. He has blown the whistle on Hunter’s interests with Ukrainian energy companies and even with Chinese energy companies.
Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, confirmed to The Associated Press via text message that a search warrant issued to Giuliani by federal investigators on April 28 named former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
Yovanovitch, who was sacked during the Trump administration and was one of the core witnesses called when the House of Representatives first impeached Trump, said Giuliani’s allies in Ukraine, who hindered her work at the State Department, also admitted that she did not have information about Trump’s pressure on Ukraine in exchange for investigating the corruption of the Biden father and son.
Giuliani, as Trump’s personal lawyer, was a central figure in Trump’s push to investigate corruption against Biden and his son Hunter involving the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. Hunter was a board member of the Ukrainian company.
Trump said at the time that Yovanovich had performed poorly in her job and that the Ukrainian president had negative things to say about her. Trump said, “It is the absolute right of the president of the United States to appoint ambassadors.”
But Democrats have tried to link Yovanovich’s removal from the Trump administration to alleged pressure from Trump on Ukraine.
On the afternoon of April 28, Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani, decried the lack of judicial independence. “They didn’t take away the only evidence that would convict at the door, (which) is not with my father, but with the son of the current president (Biden).”
Andrews stressed, “Our judiciary is supposed to be independent of politics, stop it in moderation! Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t take it anymore. Again, if this can happen to the president’s lawyer, it can happen to each and every one of us.”
Giuliani’s lawyer Costello confirmed that the search warrant mentions former top Ukrainian prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko.
Yovanovich said during the House impeachment hearings that Ukrainian officials told her that Giuliani had contacts with Lutsenko, that “they had plans, they were going to do something, including something to me” and that Lutsenko “wanted to hurt me in the United States.”
The Associated Press said the search warrant’s references to Jovanovich suggest that authorities are trying to determine whether Giuliani’s role in the ambassador’s removal was carried out at Trump’s behest or at the behest of Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that one theory advanced by federal prosecutors is that Giuliani sought to fire Yovanovich at the behest of Ukrainian officials in exchange for damaging information about the Biden fathers from Ukraine.
The paper said. If such an exchange existed, Giuliani could have violated federal lobbying laws even if no financial payments were involved.
Federal law requires anyone who lobbies the United States on behalf of a foreign country or entity to register with the Justice Department.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Ukrainians who worked with Giuliani, have been charged with, among other charges, funneling foreign funds to various U.S. campaigns to gain influence over candidates and violating campaign finance rules.
In an April 2 interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Giuliani denied that he violated federal law when he dug up dirt on the Biden family in Ukraine in support of Trump in 2019.
Giuliani said, “There is no justification for this warrant, it is an illegal, unconstitutional warrant.” He said he had never acted on behalf of any Ukrainians.
Giuliani also said agents took eight pieces of electronic equipment and two pieces of equipment belonging to other people, but none of the three hard drives he identified as Biden’s son Hunter.
Prosecutors have not yet filed any charges against Giuliani.
Recent Comments