Earlier than Rudolph W. Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million to 2 Georgia election employees he defamed, and earlier than he owed his personal attorneys a number of million {dollars} extra, federal prosecutors had been scrutinizing whether or not he pursued doubtful enterprise dealings in Ukraine to shore up his dwindling fortune, in line with courtroom information unsealed late Tuesday.
The paperwork lifted the veil on a felony investigation that federal prosecutors spent three years conducting into the dealings of Mr. Giuliani, the previous New York mayor who had reinvented himself as Donald J. Trump’s private lawyer and assault canine.
The investigation, which didn’t end in costs for Mr. Giuliani, centered on whether or not he illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officers. Those self same Ukrainians helped Mr. Giuliani dig for dust on Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was then on his method to turning into the Democratic presidential nominee and who would finally defeat Mr. Trump in 2020.
The prosecutors had assembled sufficient proof to influence a decide in April 2021 to authorize the seizure of Mr. Giuliani’s telephones and computer systems, a rare step to take in opposition to any lawyer, not to mention one who had represented a sitting president. And for a time, it appeared as if the prosecutors, working in the identical Manhattan U.S. lawyer’s workplace that Mr. Giuliani had presided over many years earlier, may search to indict him.
However after they didn’t discover a smoking gun in Mr. Giuliani’s digital information, the prosecutors notified the decide overseeing the matter that they’d ended the long-running investigation.
A spokesman for Mr. Giuliani didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark late Tuesday.
The decide, J. Paul Oetken, lately ordered the prosecutors to launch the search warrant supplies in response to a request from The New York Instances. Mr. Giuliani consented to the newspaper’s request, as did the federal government, with sure redactions to guard privateness pursuits.
Whereas a lot of the proof that underpinned the search warrant had already come to gentle within the media and thru Mr. Trump’s first impeachment proceedings in late 2019, the search warrant supplies signify the federal government’s most complete catalog but of Mr. Giuliani’s ties to Ukraine.
And for the primary time, the information explicitly linked Mr. Giuliani’s latest monetary troubles to his dealings in Ukraine, suggesting that he didn’t simply need Ukrainian officers’ assist in attacking Mr. Biden but additionally their cash.
Though Mr. Giuliani’s cash woes have hardly been a secret, the information supply a beforehand unreported snapshot of his monetary situation and present that these issues had been undergirding the federal investigation into the previous mayor.
In Could 2018, as Mr. Giuliani was leaving his legislation agency to work for Mr. Trump, he had roughly $1.2 million in money, and a few $40,000 in bank card debt, in line with the search warrant information. By early 2019, simply as he was constructing ties to the Ukrainian officers, he was right down to roughly $400,000 in money and as much as $110,000 in bank card debt.
A month later, in line with the search warrant information, “his account balances had dropped to approximately $288,000,” a decline that coincided with an costly divorce from his third spouse, Judith Nathan.
Though the Manhattan U.S. lawyer’s inquiry as soon as appeared to pose the gravest authorized hazard to Mr. Giuliani — and its closure represented a major victory for him — the reprieve was quick lived.
In Georgia this 12 months, Mr. Giuliani was indicted in a sweeping racketeering case in connection along with his effort to maintain Mr. Trump in workplace after the 2020 election. In New York, his own lawyer sued him for failing to pay authorized payments from a wide selection of labor, starting from the investigation into his ties to Ukraine to the expansive litigation stemming from the 2020 election combat. And in Washington final week, a federal jury ordered him to pay the $148 million to the 2 Georgia election employees whom he defamed by spreading baseless claims that they tried to steal votes from Mr. Trump. That blow will almost certainly immediate him to file for chapter.
Collectively, the cascade of authorized woes has marked a outstanding reversal of fortune for Mr. Giuliani, as soon as often called “America’s mayor” within the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults.
Just some years in the past, he was value hundreds of thousands, because of profitable contracts and legislation agency partnerships he gained after leaving Metropolis Corridor. At age 79, Mr. Giuliani is now going through monetary wreck, and, probably, years in jail.
The federal investigation into Mr. Giuliani culminated within the F.B.I. seizure of digital gadgets from his Manhattan house and workplace. The seizure marked a dramatic escalation of an investigation that grew out of a felony case in opposition to two Soviet-born males who helped Mr. Giuliani stress Ukrainian officers to research Mr. Trump’s rivals, together with Mr. Biden and his son, Hunter, who had served on the board of a Ukrainian vitality firm.
One of many Soviet-born males, Lev Parnas, turned on Mr. Giuliani and provided proof in opposition to him. He was convicted in October 2021 and sentenced to twenty months in jail, whereas the opposite man, Igor Fruman, pleaded responsible and acquired a one-year sentence.
A foremost focus of the investigation into Mr. Giuliani was his position in lobbying the Trump administration to take away the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch. Among the identical Ukrainian officers whom Mr. Giuliani needed to implicate the Bidens — together with a high-ranking prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko — had butted heads with Ms. Yovanovitch over her condemnation of political corruption, they usually needed her gone.
Mr. Trump finally recalled her in Could 2019 — a transfer that was scrutinized throughout his first impeachment trial — however it took time and a number of other false begins.
In Could 2019, Mr. Giuliani texted Mr. Parnas, seemingly in a sarcastic tone, “Boy I’m so powerful I can intimidate the entire Ukrainian government,” including, “Please don’t tell anyone I can’t get the crooked Ambassador fired or I did three times and she’s still there.”
The search warrant supplies underscore how extensively the Manhattan prosecutors examined whether or not Mr. Giuliani had struck a quid professional quo with Mr. Lutsenko: pushing for Ms. Yovanovitch’s elimination in change for details about the Biden household that may profit Mr. Trump.
The affidavit that an F.B.I. agent submitted to Choose Oetken in help of the search warrant detailed the array of proof linking Mr. Giuliani to Mr. Lutsenko, whose identify was largely redacted.
Particularly, in line with the affidavit, the authorities scrutinized Mr. Giuliani’s pursuit of a $200,000 contract with Mr. Lutsenko to retain Mr. Giuliani’s agency to assist get well funds believed to have been stolen from Ukrainian authorities coffers.
And with Mr. Giuliani’s funds worsening, he “had a financial interest in receiving such a retainer agreement from” Mr. Lutsenko, the affidavit mentioned.
Mr. Parnas, the affidavit mentioned, had additionally said that Mr. Lutsenko would solely implicate the Bidens if the ambassador was going to be eliminated. Mr. Lutsenko needed her gone for “his own career reasons,” in line with Mr. Parnas, the affidavit mentioned.
“It appears that Giuliani took steps to cause the firing of the ambassador to prove to” Mr. Lutsenko “what he could achieve in order to, among other things, secure the legal representation,” in line with the affidavit.
It’s in opposition to federal legislation to attempt to affect the U.S. authorities on behalf of a international official with out registering as a international agent.
But Mr. Giuliani argued that he was appearing as Mr. Trump’s lawyer, not as a lobbyist for Ukrainian officers. He needed Ms. Yovanovitch gone, he contended, as a result of he believed she was disloyal to Mr. Trump and hostile to his try to uncover details about Mr. Biden.
Dealing with this protection, the Manhattan prosecutors determined to shut the investigation.
In a letter to Choose Oetken final 12 months, the prosecutors wrote that “based on information currently available to the government, criminal charges are not forthcoming.”
Kenneth P. Vogel contributed reporting.
