New York: the apartment of Rudolph Giuliani, former Trump lawyer, raided by the FBI

In the United States, searches of lawyers are extremely rare.

The federal police however searched Wednesday the apartment and the New York office of Rudolph Giuliani, former personal lawyer of Donald Trump and mayor of New York during the attacks of 2001, as part of an investigation into his activities in Ukraine. .

But several American media affirm it.

According to the New York Times, citing anonymous sources, federal prosecutors in Manhattan had obtained a search warrant for his apartment in the Upper East Side neighborhood, and "electronic devices" were seized.

Contacted, neither Manhattan prosecutors nor the FBI have confirmed the information.

"Legal banditry"

For Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello, the search amounts to "legal banditry".

"Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who has served as a prosecutor, mayor of New York, and personal advocate for the 45th President of the United States?

He told the New York Times.

Federal prosecutors have for months been investigating Rudy Giuliani's lobbying activities in Ukraine, and more specifically the possibility that Donald Trump's ex-personal lawyer and Manhattan's ex-federal prosecutor intervened with the Trump administration in 2019, on behalf of Ukrainian officials and businessmen, according to several media.

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The former New York mayor, 76, has not been charged and prosecutors have never officially spoken about the investigation.

But in the fall of 2019, he found himself at the heart of the Ukrainian scandal that rocked the Trump presidency.

Rudy Giuliani's efforts to convince Kiev to deliver compromising information about Joe Biden then came to light, and helped bring the US president to the brink of impeachment.

Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic President, was notably accused of being linked to corruption cases in Ukraine by Donald Trump.

The son had to break the silence to protect his father.

Prosecutors had previously tried under the Trump administration to obtain a search warrant in order to obtain Rudy Giuliani's phones, but senior Justice Department officials opposed it, according to several media outlets.

Ukrainians sanctioned

Two men who worked for Giuliani in Ukraine, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were indicted in New York in late 2019 for violating campaign finance laws.

Their trial is scheduled for October.

The US Treasury also sanctioned last January four Ukrainians who assisted Rudy Giuliani in his efforts, accusing them of electoral interference.

In recent months, Rudy Giuliani has been one of the strongest supporters of Donald Trump and his claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in favor of his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

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