Multiple sources are reporting that federal investigators executed a search warrant at a Manhattan apartment owned by former mayor, current Trump surrogate, and leader of the effort to overturn the 2020 election, Rudy Giuliani. According to The New York Times, that search is directly connected to an investigation of Giuliani’s actions in Ukraine.
For literally years, Giuliani has been pushing false stories about President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and actions that were taken in Ukraine during the Obama administration. The stories that Giuliani brought back from Ukraine led directly to the dismissal of a talented ambassador, generated a whole series of congressional investigations, and encouraged Donald Trump to make a phone call to the Ukrainian president that led directly to Trump’s first impeachment.
The New York Times is now reporting that investigators have extended their search to Giuliani’s office, and to the home of Guiliani associate Victoria Toensing, who also worked with Giuliani on several of his efforts to convince former Ukrainian officials to create false charges against Joe Biden or Huntet Biden. Toensing is closely associated with Russian organized crime figure Dmytro Firtash, who was also connected to Parnas and Fruman.
Despite multiple denials, Trump eventually admitted that he sent Giuliani to Ukraine specifically for the purposes of finding—or creating—dirt Trump could use against Biden. In the process, Giuliani worked worked with a pair of scam artists who were arrested trying to leave the country and charged with bribery, conspiracy, and funneling foreign funds into U.S. elections. Considering all this, it’s not surprising that as far back as October of 2019, Giuliani was known to be the subject of a criminal investigation.
What’s amazing is that it’s taken this long for investigators to get around to searching Giuliani’s East Side apartment. But then, as people say, elections matter.
There’s an irony in The New York Times breaking the news that Giuliani is being investigated for his actions in connections with Ukraine, because it was the Times which provided Giuliani with breathless reporting in which they pasted pages of unverified charges made against the Biden family. Some actual investigation by Bloomberg in May of 2019 showed that there really was a scandal, but it didn’t involve Biden. It involved Giuliani and a cohort of pro-Russia Ukrainians working to create a deceptive image of what had happened that was exactly backward from actual events.
Somehow, despite what seemed to be heaps of evidence that ensnared Giuliani into the schemes for which his associates Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were indicted, Giuliani was left free to wander about the country, spreading lies about the election and heading up the team that generated the second Trump impeachment.
For a guy who once said he was worried about becoming a “laughingstock,” it’s really hard to see how Giuliani could have done much better.
According to reporting both the Times and at CNBC, investigators have been trying to get a search warrant for Giuliani’s residence “for months.” However, those attempts were repeatedly blocked. Now that Trump and former Attorney General Bill Barr aren’t in place to keep the wheels of justice stuck in the mud, it seems that investigators have finally gotten around to not only searching Giuliani’s apartment, but seizing all his electronic devices.
The Wall Street Journal reports that investigators arrived at Giuliani’s place at 6 AM before beginning their search. So expect Fox News to be filled with the same umbrage that greeted a search of Roger Stone’s home before his arrest, and the offices of Michael Cohen, before his arrest.
The investigation into Giuliani is, as might be expected, directly connected to the cases against Parnas and Fruman. Both of those indictments featured false names to cover what was clearly Giuliani’s involvement. The investigation is expected to extend from illegal lobbying for Ukrainian officials in the United States, to Giuliani’s business dealings in Ukraine, and his involvement in the removal of experienced ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
The story of Giuliani’s attempt to manufacture dirt on Biden, assist a collection of foreign criminals, and thwart the will of American voters isn’t over. But the lawyer who helped get Trump impeached—twice—may finally be getting his real day in court.