Rudy Giuliani complains he’s being treated like drug cartel head amid reports Trump has abandoned him
Former mayor of New York reportedly under investigation for work in Ukraine during Trump presidency
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Rudy Giuliani has complained he is being treated like the head of a drug cartel head amid reports that Donald Trump has abandoned him.
Lawyers for Mr Giuliani have condemned prosecutors for the 28 April raid by FBI agents on his New York home and criticised them for gaining electronic access to his accounts.
The former Mayor of New York’s legal team made the strong criticism in a letter filed on Monday on his behalf.
“Unfortunately for Giuliani, and even more unfortunately for the attorney-client privilege and executive deliberation privilege, and the public’s perception that those privileges are real, the SDNY simply chose to treat a distinguished lawyer as if he was the head of a drug cartel or a terrorist, in order to create maximum prejudicial coverage of both Giuliani, and his most well-known client – the former President of the United States,” it stated.
The letters comes amid reports that Mr Trump and his inner circle are reluctant to help Mr Giuliani during his legal difficulties, reports The Daily Beast.
Federal prosecutors are looking at whether Mr Giuliani’s work in Ukraine while Mr Trump was in the White House amounted to illegal and unregistered lobbying for foreign individuals.
“It’s a question now of whether or not [the former president and his team] want to leave Rudy to fend for himself or if they’re going to take a stand against this. Right now, we don’t know,” one person close to Mr Giuliani told the outlet.
Two sources told The Daily Beast that Mr Trump has expressed sympathy for Mr Giuliani’s legal issues but has not yet committed to helping out his personal lawyer.
Another insider told them that Mr Giuliani has said he is convinced that when he needs him Mr Trump will step up.
Meanwhile federal prosecutors have asked the US Southern District of New York to appoint a special master to make sure that no evidence protected under attorney-client privilege is released in the case.
Mr Giuliani’s lawyers claims that such a request is a “do over” after prosecutors did not get one for the 2019 seizure of his iCloud account.
His lawyers argue that 2019 search was “certainly used in some part to secure the 2021 largely duplicative search warrant.”
His legal team has asked a federal judge to halt the appointment of the special master in the 2021 warrant to give them more time to review the evidence supporting the 2019 search.
The lawyers claim that the prosecutors waited until Joe Biden was in the White House and “senior members of the Justice Department had been removed and replaced by Biden appointees” to carry out the April raid.
Prosecutors have not charged Mr Giuliani with any crime. He has vigorously denied any wrongdoing.