Rudy Giuliani has his home raided as investigation into former mayor escalates
New York, New York - Investigators have searched the New York residence of Donald Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani over his role in the Ukraine affair, according to several media reports.
Federal investigators executed a search of the New York residence of Trump lawyer and former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday.
Authorities are looking into Giuliani's ties to the Ukraine affair. He is accused of working with various Ukrainian officials and businessmen to launch an investigation into the Bidens, who were Trump's rivals at the time.
Then President Trump was investigated and eventually impeached by the House for threatening the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with withholding military aid against Russian aggression if Joe Biden and his son Hunter weren't investigated for alleged corruption.
According to multiple news outlets, a high ranking official in the Department of Justice would have been required to sign off on the search warrant for someone like Giuliani.
CNN also reported that Giuliani's own lawyer Robert Costello said seven federal agents were sent to Giuliani's Manhattan apartment and other agents served a warrant on Giuliani's Park Avenue office where they seized devices including a computer belonging to his assistant Jo Ann Zafonte.
Zafonte was also served with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury next month. Victoria Toensing, a lawyer who was also heavily involved with the Ukraine affair also had a search warrant executed at her home at the same time and is a former federal prosecutor.
Investigation also underway to find out if Giuliani influenced Trump administration
The investigation has been ongoing since 2019, with federal prosecutors trying to determine if Giuliani was involved in secret foreign lobbying for Ukrainian officials, as well as if Giuliani's own investigation into the Bidens was for his own personal gain.
In a December 2019 interview with the New Yorker, Giuliani also appeared to admit involvement in the removal of the US ambassador to Ukraine. "I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way," he said at the time. "She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody."
According to the New York Times, his extensive involvement with Ukrainian businessmen could have extended to trying to exercise undue influence on the Trump administration.
Rudy Giuliani's son Andrew Giuliani addressed the press directly yesterday to share his anger at the search.
"The only piece of evidence that they did not take up there today was the only piece of incriminating evidence that is in there," he raged, before adding, "And it does not belong to my father. It belongs to the current president’s son." This was a reference to copies of computer hard drives in his father's possession that allegedly belonged to President Biden's son Hunter.
When reminded that a high level judge had signed the warrant for the search, Andrew Giuliani replied, "I'll answer that. An Obama-era judge signed off on that!" he said.
Cover photo: Collage: 123rf/ Serhii Kamshylin & Imago/UPI Photo