Feds Execute Search Warrant At Rudy Giuliani's Home

[Markinsa]

2 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

The "truth" as you want it to be, you mean.    Which, by the way, is fine by me.  You're allowed to believe whatever you want.

 

GO RV, then BV

 

My truth says that people who died from Gunshot Wounds, Car Accidents, Drug Overdoses, etc, were classified as Covid-19 (Wuhan) Virus deaths.  What does your truth say?

 

.

[MyLadiesDaddy]

59 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Those tweets were part of the article....which of course, you already knew.  

 

GO RV, then BV

 

🥰🥰🥰I was pulling your chain because the fake news reporter turned a Twitter tirade into a full fledged article. 

[Shabibilicious]

14 minutes ago, Markinsa said:

 

My truth says that people who died from Gunshot Wounds, Car Accidents, Drug Overdoses, etc, were classified as Covid-19 (Wuhan) Virus deaths.  What does your truth say?

 

.

 

Reality.

 

GO RV, then BV

[Shabibilicious]

14 minutes ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

🥰🥰🥰I was pulling your chain because the fake news reporter turned a Twitter tirade into a full fledged article. 

 

Not a Twitter tirade.....simply a concerned Upper Westside neighbor of significant means, looking for fame and notoriety.....seems to be a thing 'round those parts.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[Shabibilicious]

Giuliani flakes on 'live statement' he announced 23 minutes earlier

 

 

Brendan Morrow

Wed, April 28, 2021, 4:45 PM

 

 

Rudy Giuliani was apparently a bit too tied up to deliver a live statement on the radio this afternoon — even though he just said he would 20 minutes prior.

After federal investigators on Wednesday searched the home and office of Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and personal lawyer to former President Donald Trump, a tweet from his account told followers to tune in on the radio "for a live statement" at 3:00 p.m. ET.

But those who did so in hopes of hearing Giuliani's response to his legal woes were met with, well, not that, as he didn't show up. Giuliani, Slate noted, has a program on 77 WABC that's regularly scheduled for this time, but there was another host there on Wednesday afternoon instead.

 

 

The original tweet announcing the appearance was subsequently deleted, and Giuliani offered no explanation about what happened.

 

 

We'll have to wait and see if there ever ends up being a "live statement," but perhaps it will just come in the form of a butt-dial to a reporter instead.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/giuliani-flakes-live-statement-announced-204513694.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[Karsten]

17 minutes ago, Markinsa said:

 

My truth says that people who died from Gunshot Wounds, Car Accidents, Drug Overdoses, etc, were classified as Covid-19 (Wuhan) Virus deaths.  What does your truth say?

 

.

 

You left out Motorcycle Crashes, Natural Causes, Heart Attacks, Suicide and the list could go on and on.

 

Karsten

[Markinsa]

16 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Reality.

 

GO RV, then BV

 

That's a cop out answer.

 

.

[Shabibilicious]

Trump says Rudy Giuliani is a 'great patriot' and skewers the FBI raids on him as 'very unfair'

 

 

Sonam Sheth

Thu, April 29, 2021, 9:45 AM EDT

 

 

 

Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump together in November 2016. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• Trump praised Rudy Giuliani as a "great patriot" and said the FBI's raids on him were "very unfair."

• "It is so terrible when you see the things going on in our country with the corruption and the problems, and then they go after Rudy Giuliani," he told Fox's Maria Bartiromo.

• Giuliani is the second Trump lawyer to be the target of a federal criminal investigation.

Former President Donald Trump defended his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, as a "great patriot" on Thursday and said the FBI's raids on him as "very unfair."

"He just loves this country, and they raid his apartment," Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo in an interview. "It's like a double standard like I don't think anybody's ever seen before. It's very, very unfair. Rudy is a patriot who loves this country."

The FBI on Wednesday executed search warrants on Giuliani's Manhattan apartment and office, as well as on the home of Victoria Toensing, one of his associates in Washington, DC. Agents seized Giuliani's electronic devices and a computer belonging to his longtime personal assistant, Jo Ann Zafonte. They also served Zafonte with a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury in May.

Executing a search warrant on a lawyer is an extraordinary step that requires approval from a federal magistrate judge, and Wednesday's developments marked a significant turning point in the long-running criminal investigation into whether Giuliani violated foreign lobbying laws in his dealings with Ukraine.

 

"I don't know what they're looking for or what they're doing. They say it had to do with filings of various papers and lobbying files. Well, did Hunter file? Did Biden file?" Trump said Thursday, referring to President Joe Biden and his son. "Because they did a lot of work with other countries. To the best of everyone's knowledge, they didn't file."

There is no evidence that the president had illicit business dealings in foreign countries. Hunter Biden, meanwhile, revealed in December that federal prosecutors are investigating his financial affairs.

"It's a very, very unfair situation," Trump repeated on Thursday. "It is so terrible when you see the things going on in our country with the corruption and the problems, and then they go after Rudy Giuliani. It's very sad, actually."

The New York Times first reported in 2019 that the Manhattan US attorney's office was conducting a criminal probe into Giuliani's business dealings. Specifically, investigators are said to be examining whether he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires that American citizens notify the Justice Department of any contacts they have with foreign governments or officials, and if they interact with the US government or media at the direction of those officials.

The investigation into the former New York mayor is also said to include a counterintelligence aspect, which indicates that the FBI may view him as a national security threat.

Giuliani, for his part, spearheaded a months-long, behind-the-scenes effort to influence US policy vis-a-vis Ukraine, an endeavor that ultimately led to Trump's first impeachment in 2019.

He was also in contact with several Russian and Ukrainian political operatives as part of a public quest to dig up dirt on the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election. Giuliani's actions were so alarming to US officials that, according to The Washington Post, they warned the White House that Russian intelligence agencies were using Giuliani to funnel disinformation to Trump.

Giuliani's lawyer, Bob Costello, slammed the FBI's raids Wednesday as "legal thuggery" and said his client had done nothing wrong. Giuliani's son Andrew also leapt to his father's defense, telling reporters, "If this can happen to the former president's lawyer, this can happen to any American."

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-rudy-giuliani-great-134543706.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[Shabibilicious]

Rudy Giuliani's lawyer said the feds raiding his Manhattan apartment is a 'clear example of a corrupt double standard'

 

 

Lauren Frias

Wed, April 28, 2021, 11:45 PM

 

 

 

Rudy Giuliani gestures during an appearance before the Michigan House Oversight Committee in Lansing, Michigan, on December 2, 2020. Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

• The FBI raided Rudy Giuliani's Manhattan apartment Wednesday in connection with a probe into his Ukraine dealings.

• Giuliani's attorney said it is a "corrupt double standard" that feds didn't execute a search warrant against Hunter Biden as well.

• The DOJ greenlighted a search warrant against Giuliani following Merrick Garland's confirmation as attorney general.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's attorney said federal investigators raiding his Manhattan apartment is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard" in a statement he released Wednesday night.

Federal investigators executed a search warrant and seized electronic devices from Giuliani's home earlier Wednesday in connection with a criminal probe into Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, The New York Times reported.

In October 2019, Prosecutors accused two of Giuliani's associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman helped dig up dirt on Biden and his father, current President Joe Biden, ahead of the 2020 election. Parnas and Fruman were both arrested on charges of campaign finance violations as part of a conspiracy to funnel foreign money into US elections.

A federal criminal investigation into Giuliani resumed last month, and the Justice Department approved the search warrant against Giuliani following Merrick Garland's confirmation as attorney general. Sources told The Times that Justice Department under former President Donald Trump previously thwarted efforts to secure a warrant against Giuliani, who serves as Trump's personal lawyer.

 

In a statement released in response to the raid, Giuliani's lawyer Robert J. Costello said there was a "corrupt double standard" and pointed out that investigators did not execute a search warrant against Hunter Biden, who had been under GOP scrutiny due to his ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

"This contrasts with multiple proven incidences of failure to file as a foreign agent contained on the Biden hard drive which the FBI and the Department of Justice has ignored," Costello wrote in the statement. "You have not seen the home of Hunter Biden raided by the FBI with search warrants."

"This behavior of the justice department, enabled by a compliant media, running roughshod over the constitutional rights of anyone involved in, or legally defending, former President Donald J. Trump is becoming the rule, rather than the exception," Costello continued.

Costello said investigators "left behind the only electronics that contain evidence of crimes, the Hunter Biden hard drives," which Giuliani had offered the FBI on "several occasions," but agents declined. Giuliani's son Andrew Giuliani also told reporters earlier Wednesday that the hard drives were left in the apartment.

Hunter Biden was under GOP scrutiny following a disputed article by The New York Post about a laptop purportedly belonging to Biden. Intelligence experts said they believed the story has "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rudy-giulianis-lawyer-said-feds-034501464.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[coorslite21]

1 hour ago, Shabibilicious said:

Rudy Giuliani's lawyer said the feds raiding his Manhattan apartment is a 'clear example of a corrupt double standard'

 

 

Lauren Frias

Wed, April 28, 2021, 11:45 PM

 

 

 

Rudy Giuliani gestures during an appearance before the Michigan House Oversight Committee in Lansing, Michigan, on December 2, 2020. Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

• The FBI raided Rudy Giuliani's Manhattan apartment Wednesday in connection with a probe into his Ukraine dealings.

• Giuliani's attorney said it is a "corrupt double standard" that feds didn't execute a search warrant against Hunter Biden as well.

• The DOJ greenlighted a search warrant against Giuliani following Merrick Garland's confirmation as attorney general.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's attorney said federal investigators raiding his Manhattan apartment is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard" in a statement he released Wednesday night.

Federal investigators executed a search warrant and seized electronic devices from Giuliani's home earlier Wednesday in connection with a criminal probe into Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, The New York Times reported.

In October 2019, Prosecutors accused two of Giuliani's associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman helped dig up dirt on Biden and his father, current President Joe Biden, ahead of the 2020 election. Parnas and Fruman were both arrested on charges of campaign finance violations as part of a conspiracy to funnel foreign money into US elections.

A federal criminal investigation into Giuliani resumed last month, and the Justice Department approved the search warrant against Giuliani following Merrick Garland's confirmation as attorney general. Sources told The Times that Justice Department under former President Donald Trump previously thwarted efforts to secure a warrant against Giuliani, who serves as Trump's personal lawyer.

 

In a statement released in response to the raid, Giuliani's lawyer Robert J. Costello said there was a "corrupt double standard" and pointed out that investigators did not execute a search warrant against Hunter Biden, who had been under GOP scrutiny due to his ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

"This contrasts with multiple proven incidences of failure to file as a foreign agent contained on the Biden hard drive which the FBI and the Department of Justice has ignored," Costello wrote in the statement. "You have not seen the home of Hunter Biden raided by the FBI with search warrants."

"This behavior of the justice department, enabled by a compliant media, running roughshod over the constitutional rights of anyone involved in, or legally defending, former President Donald J. Trump is becoming the rule, rather than the exception," Costello continued.

Costello said investigators "left behind the only electronics that contain evidence of crimes, the Hunter Biden hard drives," which Giuliani had offered the FBI on "several occasions," but agents declined. Giuliani's son Andrew Giuliani also told reporters earlier Wednesday that the hard drives were left in the apartment.

Hunter Biden was under GOP scrutiny following a disputed article by The New York Post about a laptop purportedly belonging to Biden. Intelligence experts said they believed the story has "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rudy-giulianis-lawyer-said-feds-034501464.html

 

GO RV, then BV

 

Perhaps they'll find a treasure grove of dirt on America's Mayor......?

 

I doubt they will....

 

But let's keep it fair.....they have Hunter Bidens laptop with information on how the Biden crime family operated....as well as pictures of Hunter doing crack, while having sex with minors.....they have Tony B...as a very credible witness....

 

Because of Hunters previous conviction he had to lie on legal document to purchase a firearm......and that's a felony......

 

So if we are going to go after a once very well thought of Guilliani.....why is Hunter Biden off limits?

CL

[MyLadiesDaddy]

So when is the FBI ,Federal Birrow of Idiot's, gonna raid John Kerry's house?

[Markinsa]

 

[Shabibilicious]

Rudy Giuliani defiant, a day after FBI raid of home, office

JIM MUSTIAN

Thu, April 29, 2021, 8:00 AM

 

 

NEW YORK (AP) — Rudy Giuliani sought to discredit the federal investigation into his dealings in Ukraine on Thursday, a day after agents raided his home and office.

Giuliani said the 6 a.m. search, which he said involved seven FBI agents, was unnecessary because he offered for two years to provide federal prosecutors his electronic devices and to “talk it over with them.”

“They won't explain to me what they're looking into for two years,” Giuliani said in an evening appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello, has previously said proposed meetings between investigators and Giuliani's legal team didn't take place because prosecutors wouldn't agree to a precondition that they first disclose more about the probe.

It would be rare for prosecutors to give up detailed information to a potential criminal defendant before charges are filed, or to rely on that person to voluntarily produce electronic files thought to contain incriminating evidence.

The federal probe is examining Giuliani’s interactions with Ukrainian figures and whether he violated a federal law that governs lobbying on behalf of foreign countries or entities.

Giuliani, the Republican former mayor of New York City, has insisted that all of his activities in Ukraine were conducted on behalf of former President Donald Trump. At the time, Giuliani was leading a campaign to press Ukraine for an investigation into President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

But some Ukrainians who were in contact with Giuliani have said in interviews that they also hoped he could help them on matters in the U.S., including arranging meetings with the U.S. attorney general and ousting the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.

The search warrants for Giuliani’s electronic devices were approved by a federal judge. The agents who banged on his door this week took “seven or eight electronic items of mine and two of someone else’s,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani said Thursday that federal prosecutors told his attorney they had accessed materials from his iCloud as early as 2019.

“In the middle of the impeachment defense, they invaded, without telling me, my iCloud," he told Carlson, without providing details.

Earlier in the day, Giuliani made his first public comments since the raid on his daily talk show on WABC Radio. On the air, he referred to prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which he used to run, as unaccomplished “bullies."

“You’re not going to stop me,” he said on the program. "And you’re not going to convict me of some phony crime.”

He then ticked off a list of his own accomplishments as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan in the 1980s, including prosecutions of mob figures and Wall Street fraudsters, and bashed the current prosecution team as having done nothing comparable.

“What have they done? Nothing, except come after me ... at six o’clock in the morning with a piece of nonsense. No wonder they’re jealous,” Giuliani said.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment.

In the decades since Giuliani left, the office has handled some of the nation's most high-profile prosecutions, convicting global drug traffickers, corrupt politicians, Wall Street scammers and terrorists including the men behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday on CNN that the White House was given no heads’ up on the fact the raid was coming. The Justice Department, she said, “is independent now. They’re gonna make their own decisions, take their own actions. That’s how the president wants it.”

Trump told Fox Business on Thursday that Giuliani was "the greatest mayor in the history of New York” and “a great patriot.”

“It’s very, very unfair,” he said of what happened Wednesday. “Rudy loves this country so much, it is so terrible when you see things that are going on in our country with the corruption and the problems and then they go after Rudy Giuliani."

___

 

https://news.yahoo.com/feds-raid-giulianis-home-office-120027694.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[yota691]

BREAKING: Giuliani's son addresses reporters after Federal raid
171,549 views•Apr 28, 2021

 

 

 

Granny Grunt
1 day ago
I hope Rudy Giuliani sues the pants off of them, the justice system is all about targeting Republicans, !

 

Chris Farrell
1 day ago
The timing! Yes! They want to create a diversion from the news reports of John Kerry's treason.

 

Richard Grant
1 day ago
We all know the MEDIA is NOT going to air both sides of a story, in fact, they will twist a storyline, with editing, to push a narrative.

 

Daniel Einspahr
1 day ago
This is incredible,  we are  seeing this right in front of us ,they dont even care. FBI DOJ, they are all in on it.

 

[Shabibilicious]

15 hours ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

So when is the FBI ,Federal Birrow of Idiot's, gonna raid John Kerry's house?

 

Maybe this would be a good time for you to start a John Kerry, or even a Hunter Biden thread....Oh wait, those already exist.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[MyLadiesDaddy]

53 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Maybe this would be a good time for you to start a John Kerry, or even a Hunter Biden thread....Oh wait, those already exist.  

 

GO RV, then BV

Your last Propaganda piece here claiming Giuliani's defiance is a PATHETIC JOKE. If the Federal Burrow of Idiot's did that to me I wouldn't stop verbally abusing them for years. I would call them ALL out for the Gestapo SS Thugs they are. 

[Shabibilicious]

1 minute ago, ladyGrace'sDaddy said:

Your last Propaganda piece here claiming Giuliani's defiance is a PATHETIC JOKE. If the Federal Burrow of Idiot's did that to me I wouldn't stop verbally abusing them for years. I would call them ALL out for the Gestapo SS Thugs they are. 

 

It's not my piece, I simply posted the article......I thought we had that misconception cleared up long ago.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[nstoolman1]

23 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

It's not my piece, I simply posted the article......I thought we had that misconception cleared up long ago.  

 

GO RV, then BV

 

Maybe you should post a disclaimer at the top of the article claiming your approval/disapproval of said article?

I always look at them as "a person posts it they must agree with it". 

[Shabibilicious]

11 minutes ago, nstoolman1 said:

 

Maybe you should post a disclaimer at the top of the article claiming your approval/disapproval of said article?

I always look at them as "a person posts it they must agree with it". 

 

Does it really matter if I approve or disapprove of an article?.....People will believe what they want to believe, particularly in this day and age.  Most of the posters who neg my posts are negging me, not the article anyway.  I'm not playing victim, just stating what appears to be a fact, of my own doing, of course.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[nstoolman1]

1 minute ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Does it really matter if I approve or disapprove of an article?.....People will believe what they want to believe, particularly in this day and age.  Most of the posters who neg my posts are negging me, not the article anyway.  I'm not playing victim, just stating what appears to be a fact, of my own doing, of course.  

 

GO RV, then BV

 

You do you booh.

It was only a friendly suggestion that might remove some of the backlash you get for posting some these articles.  

[Shabibilicious]

1 minute ago, nstoolman1 said:

 

You do you booh.

It was only a friendly suggestion that might remove some of the backlash you get for posting some these articles.  

 

Right on.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[Shabibilicious]

Lawyer: Feds Got Into Rudy’s iCloud With ‘Covert Warrant’ While He Repped Trump in 2019

 

 

Asawin Suebsaeng, Adam Rawnsley

Thu, April 29, 2021, 10:33 PM

 

 

 

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

A lawyer for former New York City mayor and Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the Justice Department revealed on a Thursday conference call that the feds had penetrated Giuliani’s iCloud long before Wednesday’s search warrants were executed.

“I was told about it today in a conference call with the [U.S.] Attorney’s office,” attorney Robert Costello, a longtime friend of Giuliani’s, told The Daily Beast on Thursday night. “They told me they obtained a ‘covert warrant’ for Giuliani’s iCloud account in ‘late 2019.’ They have reviewed this information for a year and a half without telling us or [fellow Trump-aligned attorney] Victoria Toensing.”

During an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Thursday night, Giuliani himself briefly referenced the warrant to search his iCloud account. “In the middle of the impeachment defense, they invaded, without telling me, my iCloud,” the Trump confidant said. “They took documents that are privileged. And then they unilaterally decided what they could read and not read. So the prosecutors at the Justice Department spied on me.”

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday evening.

 

It’s unclear what prosecutors may have obtained from the search of Giuliani’s iCloud account, but such accounts can store photos, text messages, emails, and a range of data from an Apple device’s applications, depending on the user’s settings.https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawyer-feds-got-rudy-icloud-023335029.html

On Thursday evening, The New York Times reported that the search warrant served on Giuliani’s apartment this week was investigating possible violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act by the former New York mayor in connection with his successful attempts to have former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired from her job in Kyiv. The law mandates that Americans register with the Justice Department when seeking to lobby the U.S. on behalf of foreign principals.

Asked by The Daily Beast on Thursday if the feds were looking for information on Giuliani’s seized devices regarding Yovanovitch, her ouster, and events leading up to it, Costello responded, “yes.”

Giuliani spent much of the spring of 2019 engaged in a smear campaign against the former ambassador, according to evidence and testimony presented in Trump’s first impeachment trial. According to the Times, prosecutors are particularly interested in Giuliani’s conversations with former top Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko, who had clashed with the U.S. envoy in Ukraine.

The investigation of Giuliani reportedly grew out of the investigation into and charges against his former business associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who had hired Giuliani as a consultant to assist with their insurance venture, Fraud Guarantee.

In a late 2019 indictment, prosecutors accused the two men of acting as conduits for illegal foreign campaign contributions to American politicians. As part of the effort, prosecutors said that Parnas urged a member of Congress, subsequently identified as Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), to assist in efforts to remove Yovanovitch as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. The move, according to the indictment, was “conducted, at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.”

Lutsenko was one of those Ukrainian government officials mentioned in the 2019 indictment, NBC News reported at the time.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawyer-feds-got-rudy-icloud-023335029.html

 

GO RV, then BV

 

 

[Markinsa]

54 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

As part of the effort, prosecutors said that Parnas urged a member of Congress, subsequently identified as Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), to assist in efforts to remove Yovanovitch as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

 

As a reminder to everyone, Yovanovitch was the keeper and enforcer of the Ukrainian do not prosecute list that Burisma was paying Joe and Hunter for.

 

.

[Shabibilicious]

Firing of U.S. Ambassador Is at Center of Giuliani Investigation

Ben Protess

Fri, April 30, 2021, 8:17 AM·7 min read

 

 

 

New York Police Department officers leave the apartment building of the home and office of Rudy Giuliani in New York on April 28, 2021. (Jeenah Moon/The New York Times)

Two years ago, Rudy Giuliani finally got one thing he had been seeking in Ukraine: The Trump administration removed the U.S. ambassador there, a woman Giuliani believed had been obstructing his efforts to dig up dirt on the Biden family.

It was a Pyrrhic victory. Giuliani’s push to oust the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, not only became a focus of President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, but it has now landed Giuliani in the cross hairs of a federal criminal investigation into whether he broke lobbying laws, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The long-running inquiry reached a turning point this week when FBI agents seized telephones and computers from Giuliani’s home and office in Manhattan, the people said. At least one of the warrants was seeking evidence related to Yovanovitch and her role as ambassador, the people said.

 

In particular, the federal authorities were expected to scour the electronic devices for communications between Giuliani and Trump administration officials about the ambassador before she was recalled in April 2019, one of the people added.

The warrant also sought his communications with Ukrainian officials who had butted heads with Yovanovitch, including some of the same people who at the time were helping Giuliani seek damaging information about President Joe Biden, who was then a candidate, and his family, the people said.

At issue for investigators is a key question: Did Giuliani go after Yovanovitch solely on behalf of Trump, who was his client at the time? Or was he also doing so on behalf of the Ukrainian officials, who wanted her removed for their own reasons?

It is a violation of federal law to lobby the United States government on behalf of foreign officials without registering with the Justice Department, and Giuliani never did so.

Even if the Ukrainians did not pay Giuliani, prosecutors could pursue the theory that they provided assistance by collecting information on the Bidens in exchange for her removal.

One of the search warrants for Giuliani’s phones and computers explicitly stated that the possible crimes under investigation included violations of the law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to the people with knowledge of the matter.

Giuliani has long denied that he did work at the behest of the Ukrainians, or that he accepted any money from them, and he has said that he did not expressly urge Trump to fire the ambassador.

Giuliani’s work to oust Yovanovitch was part of a larger effort to attack Joe Biden and tie him to corruption in Ukraine, much of which played out in public.

But intelligence officials have long warned that Giuliani’s work in Ukraine had become ensnared with Russia’s efforts to spread disinformation about the Biden family to weaken Trump’s election rival.

The FBI stepped up its warnings about Russian disinformation before the 2020 election, including giving a defensive briefing to Giuliani, cautioning him that some of the information he was pushing on the Biden family was tainted by Russian intelligence’s efforts to spread disinformation, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The FBI’s defensive briefings are given by its counterintelligence officials and are separate from the criminal inquiry of Giuliani’s activities. The defensive briefing was reported Thursday by The Washington Post.

But the warnings to Giuliani are not surprising. Senior officials had warned Trump in late 2019 that Giuliani was pushing Russian disinformation, and the intelligence community had warned the American public that Moscow’s intelligence services were trying to hurt Biden’s election chances by spreading information about his family’s work in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, after FBI agents seized his devices, Giuliani again denied any wrongdoing. He said the search warrants demonstrated a “corrupt double standard” on the part of the Justice Department, which he accused of ignoring “blatant crimes” by Democrats, including Biden.

Asked about the search warrants Thursday, Biden told NBC’s “Today” show that he “had no idea this was underway.” He said he had pledged not to interfere in any investigation by the Justice Department.

Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, said his client had twice offered to answer prosecutors’ questions, except those regarding Giuliani’s privileged communications with the former president.

The warrants do not accuse Giuliani of wrongdoing, but they underscore his legal peril: They indicate a judge has found that investigators have probable cause to believe that a crime was committed and that the search would turn up evidence of that crime.

The investigation grew out of a case against two Soviet-born businessmen, who had helped Giuliani search for damaging information about Biden and his son, Hunter. At the time, Hunter Biden served on the board of an energy company that did business in Ukraine.

In 2019, the businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were charged in Manhattan, along with two others, with unrelated campaign finance crimes. A trial is scheduled for October.

In the Giuliani investigation, the federal prosecutors have focused on the steps he took against Yovanovitch. Giuliani has acknowledged that he provided Trump with detailed information about his claim that she was impeding investigations that could benefit Trump, and that Trump put him in touch with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

After a few aborted attempts to remove her, Yovanovitch was ultimately recalled as ambassador in late April 2019 and was told that the White House had lost trust in her.

Giuliani said in an interview in late 2019 that he believed the information he had provided the Trump administration did contribute to Yovanovitch’s dismissal. “You’d have to ask them,” he said of the Trump officials. “But they relied on it.” He added he never explicitly requested that she be fired.

The prosecutors have also examined Giuliani’s relationship with the Ukrainians who had conflicts with Yovanovitch, according to the people with knowledge of the matter. While ambassador, Yovanovitch had taken aim at corruption in Ukraine, earning her quite a few enemies.

The investigation has zeroed in on one of her opponents, Yuriy Lutsenko, the top prosecutor in Ukraine at the time, the people said. At least one of the search warrants for Giuliani’s devices mentioned Lutsenko and some of his associates, including one who helped introduce him to Giuliani.

The relationship had the potential to become symbiotic.

Lutsenko wanted Yovanovitch removed, and as the personal lawyer to the president, Giuliani was positioned to help. Giuliani wanted negative information about the Bidens, and as the top prosecutor in Ukraine, Lutsenko would have had the authority to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden’s dealings with the energy company. Giuliani also saw Yovanovitch as insufficiently loyal to the president, and as an impediment to the investigations.

Lutsenko hinted at a potential quid pro quo in text messages that became public during the impeachment trial. In March 2019, Lutsenko wrote in a Russian language text message to Parnas that he had found evidence that could be damaging to the Bidens. Then he added, “And you can’t even bring down one idiot,” in an apparent reference to Yovanovitch, followed by a frowny-face emoji.

Around that same time, Giuliani was in negotiations to also represent Lutsenko or his agency, The New York Times has previously reported. Draft retainer agreements called for Giuliani to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars to help the Ukrainian government recover money it believed had been stolen and stashed overseas.

Giuliani signed one of the retainer agreements, but he said he ultimately did not take on the work, because his representation of Trump at the same time could constitute a conflict of interest.

When Yovanovitch testified during Trump’s impeachment hearings in late 2019, she told lawmakers that she had only minimal contact with Giuliani during her tenure as ambassador.

“I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me,” she said. “But individuals who have been named in the press who have contact with Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal and financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

 

https://news.yahoo.com/firing-u-ambassador-center-giuliani-121728981.html

 

GO RV, then BV

Edited April 30, 2021 by Shabibilicious

[Markinsa]

54 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

While ambassador, Yovanovitch had taken aim at corruption in Ukraine, earning her quite a few enemies.

 

Yeah she's the one that lied under oath during the impeachment trial and was also the one that had people monitoring conservative talk radio for anything bad being said about her.

 

State Department emails indicate Yovanovitch met with Burisma rep, despite testimony

 

Former Ukrainian Prosecutor Says Yovanovitch Lied to Congress

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