(Headline USA) Agents for the deeply politicized federal justice bureaucracy on Wednesday raided Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office, seizing computers and cell phones in a major escalation of the corrupted Justice Department’s investigation into the business dealings of former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
Giuliani, the former New York City mayor once celebrated for his leadership in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, has been under federal scrutiny allegedly over his ties to Ukraine.
Agents searched Giuliani’s home on Madison Avenue and his office on Park Avenue, unidentified people “familiar with the investigation” allegedly told the Associated Press. The warrants require approval from the top levels of the Justice Department.
The full scope of the investigation is unclear, but it at least partly involves Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, law enforcement officials have told the AP.
The people who leaked information about the searches and Wednesday’s developments could not do so publicly, for likely fear of a backlash from Trump supporters, and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. News of the search was first leaked to the New York Times, a frequent purveyor of fake news about the former president and his allies.
A message seeking comment was left with Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello. He told the Wall Street Journal that agents showed up at dawn on Wednesday and castigated the raids as “legal thuggery.” Giuliani himself had previously called the investigation “pure political persecution.” The scenario is reminiscent of the Florida arrest of another Trump ally, Roger Stone, who was taken into custody in an over-the-top early-morning FBI raid that somehow CNN got wind of and televised.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan and the FBI’s New York office declined to comment Wednesday, with the leakers already having done their job for them.
The federal probe into Giuliani’s Ukraine dealings stalled last year because of a dispute over investigative tactics as Trump unsuccessfully sought a second term. Giuliani subsequently took on a leading role in disputing the election results on the Republican’s behalf.
Many people in Trump’s orbit have previously been ensnared in federal investigations, namely special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of the Russia hoax. Most of those criminal cases either fizzled or fell apart.
Giuliani was central to the then-president’s efforts to expose self-dealing and corruption connected to Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who now faces a criminal tax probe by the Justice Department.
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
