A Former Federal Prosecutor on Why Rudy Giuliani Is Very Likely F–ked

As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, on Wednesday morning at around 6 a.m., federal agents executed search warrants at Rudy Giuliani’s Madison Avenue apartment and Park Avenue office, as part of an investigation into the former mayor’s dealings in Ukraine, which included trying to dig up dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden. As The New York Times noted, “while the warrants are not an explicit accusation of wrongdoing against Mr. Giuliani, their execution shows that the investigation has entered an aggressive new phase.” In order to obtain a search warrant, prosecutors must convince a judge they have “sufficient reason” to believe that (1) a crime was committed and (2) searching the premises will uncover evidence of said crime. To laypeople, Wednesday’s action sure seemed like indication Donald Trump’s personal attorney was very likely screwed, but were we jumping the gun? According to former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, not so much! “I concur that Rudy Giuliani is in deep trouble,” Bharara, who, from 2009 to 2017, ran the U.S. attorney’s office that is leading the Giuliani investigation, wrote on Twitter.

In an interview with New York magazine, Bharara detailed his thinking re: Giuliani being f–ked, saying the move by the Feds was “extremely significant.“ Noting the fact that Rudy is “a very prominent person—not just the former lawyer to the president of the United States but also the former U.S. Attorney of the office that’s involved in the investigation,” Bharara explained that what investigators would have had to show a judge to get him or her to sign off on the warrant is “a sign that [Giuliani] is in deep trouble. We saw this play out with respect to Michael Cohen and to Paul Manafort. Very prominent targets, very sensitive cases. Both of those men were charged.” (Cohen, Trump’s former “fixer,” was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and campaign-finance violations. Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on numerous charges, before being pardoned by Trump in December 2020.)

Stressing that Giuliani is presumed to be innocent, Bharara nevertheless told New York that there’s a strong chance the former New York City mayor will be charged, given the fact that “what’s likely is that there has already been substantial investigation,” adding:

They likely already have a lot of Rudy Giuliani’s communications. You don’t need to have his devices in your possession to have email records; those are obtained from third parties, and they probably have all of that. It’s anyone’s guess what the charges will be and when they will come. But in my experience, when you do something like this, that you know will have a reputational effect on the subject, you’re usually thinking there’s a good likelihood of a charge.

As for the report that Trump’s Justice Department, under Bill Barr, sought to block prosecutors from obtaining the warrants, which were only granted once Merrick Garland took over the DOJ, Bharara noted that, hilariously, “it’s possible the delay by Justice cost Rudy Giuliani a Trump pardon.”

Asked during an interview on Thursday if he was briefed about the warrants ahead of time, Biden told NBC, “I give you my word, I was not,” adding “I made a pledge [that] I would not interfere in any way—order or try to stop any investigation the Justice Department had in their way. I learned about that last night when the rest of the world learned about it.” Asked if he’s been briefed about other investigations, Biden said, “No, and I’m not asking to be briefed—that’s the Justice Department’s independent judgment…. That’s not the role of the president to say who should be prosecuted, when they should be prosecuted, who should not be prosecuted. That’s not the role of the president. The Justice Department is the people’s lawyer, not the president’s lawyer.”

Under, Bill Barr, of course, the DOJ was a highly politicized operation that basically existed to do Trump’s bidding. And speaking of the ex-president, he offered his legal commentary on the Giuliani situation on Thursday:

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