Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was raided by federal investigators last Wednesday (April 28). Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus of law at Harvard University, said the government’s practice is unconstitutional and that if it is approved, the same thing could happen to everyone.
Dershowitz said Sunday (May 2) on WABC 770 AM’s “The Cats Roundtable” that he has agreed to defend former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney of former President Donald Trump. What happened to the lawyer is “very disturbing.
“In banana republics, in Castro’s Cuba, in many parts of the world, when a candidate loses a presidential bid, they go to the candidate, they go to his lawyer, they go to his friends.” Dershowitz said, “That doesn’t happen in the United States. (Yet) it’s happening in the United States right now. They’re going after Rudy Giuliani … and who knows who’s going to be next?”
Federal investigators raided Giuliani’s Manhattan home earlier on April 28. The New York Times led the story.
Citing three sources familiar with the matter, the story said federal investigators in Manhattan raided Giuliani’s home and office earlier that day with search warrants to advance the criminal investigation into his involvement in the Ukraine case.
Investigators confiscated Giuliani’s electronic devices and searched his Madison Avenue apartment and his Park Avenue office around 6 a.m., two of the sources said.
Dershowitz stressed, “You don’t use search warrants when people have secret information on their phones and computers. You use subpoenas. There’s a world of difference between a subpoena and a search warrant.”
He insisted, “It’s simply not constitutional. That’s why when Rudy called me … I said sure, I’ll help. I’m for the Constitution.”
Dershowitz further stated, “I think the government made a serious mistake here when they used the search warrant. They gave Rudy Giuliani a lot of legal arguments, arguments that I think he could win. And it’s not just (about) Rudy, it’s (about) everybody.”
Dershowitz emphasized, “If Rudy’s privacy is not protected, if his clients’ privacy is not protected, we’ll all be next… obviously, they went to the cloud (storage) and other materials and information without telling him. The government should not treat its citizens in this manner.”
The FBI has reportedly been investigating Giuliani for 18 months. The investigation is said to focus on whether he was registered as a foreign agent when he advocated for the firing of the U.S. ambassador to Kiev.
Giuliani and his lawyer, Robert Costello, said they have repeatedly offered to cooperate with prosecutors investigating the case. But Costello said prosecutors have refused to engage with him and his client. Instead, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have tried to use high-profile raids to draw attention to the investigation.
Dershowitz admits, “When Rudy Giuliani was U.S. attorney, he would sometimes go in with a warrant to arrest people. He was wrong then, and I was critical of him. But now he’s right. He has learned from experience. He’s on the right side now…he’s on the side of the Constitution. And I’m on his side…”
The former Harvard law professor says it’s crucial to remember: “Today, they’re going after people who maybe you don’t like. Tomorrow, they’ll be after you and your friends. One lesson we’ve learned from history is that you can’t have free speech against me and (I) don’t have (free speech) against you. You can’t have due process available to me but not to you.”
Costello, Giuliani’s attorney, said the raid shows how the Justice Department is “running roughshod over the constitutional rights of anyone associated with or legally defending former President Donald J. Trump.”
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