Rudy Giuliani says feds raided his home because they’re "jealous"
New York, New York – Beleaguered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed Thursday that federal investigators only raided his Manhattan apartment and office this week because they’re "jealous" of his erstwhile career as a prosecutor and cooked up a "garbage" case against him to smear his name.
Giuliani, who served as the US attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980s, unloaded on the feds in an appearance on his namesake radio show, his first public comments since FBI agents stormed his Upper East Side home and Midtown law firm at dawn Wednesday.
"I’ve done your job longer and much better than you have. You people have any convictions like I had when I was US attorney? You haven’t had a person like me in the US attorney’s office since I left – no wonder you’re jealous!" Giuliani said on WABC.
His voice rising, Giuliani compared the feds investigating him to some of the high-profile criminals he prosecuted as US attorney.
"I’ve been fighting crooks all my life. I’m fighting crooks again. The only tragedy of it is they have titles from the government, but they are a disgrace. They are a complete disgrace to the office that I distinguished," said Giuliani, who was an attorney for former President Donald Trump.
"Did they get any Milkens or Boeskys or the five families of the mafia or two Nazis that I sent out of the country? Huh? They get threatened with getting killed by the mafia, the Colombian cartel wanting to cut my throat?
"What have they done?" he continued. "Nothing, except come after me at 6 o’clock in the morning with a piece of nonsense. No wonder they’re jealous. I mean it’s just ridiculous."
A spokesperson for the Southern District declined to comment.
Giuliani is under investigation for his activities in the Ukraine
The Manhattan feds, operating out of the same downtown office once led by Giuliani, are investigating the former mayor over allegations that he committed foreign agent crimes by lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian government officials and oligarchs in 2019 without proper registration.
It’s unknown if the investigation extends beyond alleged lobbying violations, and Giuliani has not formally been accused of any wrongdoing.
But the feds ramped up the probe significantly this week, seizing cellphones and computers at Giuliani’s pads and executing other search warrants on some of his associates who worked with him on Ukraine efforts.
Alongside his alleged lobbying transgressions, Giuliani was in Ukraine digging for politically compromising material on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden – an effort undertaken at Trump’s direction that triggered the former president’s first impeachment.
In addition to accusing prosecutors of jealousy, Giuliani suggested on his radio show that they are going after him because they’re salty over his smear campaign against Biden.
"I didn’t collude with any Ukrainians ... I was there as a lawyer," he said. "They don’t care because they’re a bunch of liberals and they want to get rid of Trump ... What they’re doing to me as a lawyer is unconscionable. I was representing my client when I did this. I wasn’t representing any Ukrainians. I was representing Donald J. Trump."
Cover photo: IMAGO / Starface