Topline
Federal prosecutors investigating whether Rudy Giuliani complied with foreign lobbying laws during his dealings in Ukraine have chosen not to bring any charges in the case, the Department of Justice said in a court filing Monday, a major win for the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney more than a year after FBI agents first searched Giuliani’s home.
Rudy Giuliani talks to journalists outside the White House on July 1, 2020.
Key Facts
A grand jury probe has wrapped up, and “based on information currently available to the government, criminal charges are not forthcoming,” the DOJ told a Manhattan-based judge overseeing an independent review of evidence taken from Giuliani’s apartment.
Because no charges are expected, prosecutors asked the judge on Monday to terminate an independent special master who was appointed to pore through the evidence.
Giuliani’s lawyer Robert Costello told Forbes “we are not surprised but we are grateful” that prosecutors announced the end of the investigation, adding, “We have said for the past three years that Mayor Giuliani did nothing wrong.”
Key Background
The years-old investigation into Giuliani—which dramatically kicked into high gear when the FBI raided his home and apartment in April 2021—appeared to focus on the attorney’s links to Ukraine. Giuliani spent part of former President Donald Trump’s term searching in Ukraine for dirt on then-presidential contender Joe Biden, at one point acknowledging he helped push for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv Marie Yovanovitch, who was seen as an obstacle to his efforts—a series of events linked to Trump’s first impeachment. However, prosecutors reportedly looked into whether Giuliani had also pushed to oust Yovanovitch in order to help Ukrainian business titans who wanted her fired for their own reasons, possibly violating federal laws that require lobbyists for foreign interests to register with the DOJ. Giuliani has consistently denied acting as a foreign lobbyist, and the New York Times reported in August the DOJ was unlikely to charge Giuliani due to a lack of hard evidence.
Tangent
Giuliani still faces a range of other legal threats due to his work for Trump. A sweeping state investigation in Georgia is looking into Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss, and prosecutors informed Giuliani over the summer he is a target. He is also facing defamation suits from Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, two voting equipment companies that say he falsely accused them of rigging elections, and a judicial panel suspended his license to practice law in New York last year for making “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about the 2020 election.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/11/14/prosecutors-will-not-charge-rudy-giuliani-in-foreign-lobbying-probe/