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Federal prosecutors decline to file charges against Rudy Giuliani following FBI raid

AARON KATERSKY

November 14, 2022, 4:24 PM

 

 

Rudy Giuliani is seen here arriving at the Courthouse located at 60 Centre Street in Manhattan on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Federal prosecutors in New York said Monday they have declined to file criminal charges against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, more than a year after his apartment and office were searched by the FBI.

The grand jury investigation has concluded "and that based on information currently available to the Government, criminal charges are not forthcoming," prosecutors said in a letter to the court.

Prosecutors asked the court to end the appointment of Barbara S. Jones, the retired federal judge who had been appointed special master in the case.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan had been deciding whether Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers and a close adviser, violated lobbying laws when he campaigned for the ouster of then-U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from Ukraine.

 

PHOTO: Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks during a Get Out the Vote Bus Tour campaign event for Republican gubernatorial nominee for New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., on Nov. 1, 2022. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images, FILE)

The FBI seized more than a dozen devices from Giuliani's home and office during a search in April 2021. Jones had been reviewing the contents.

Giuliani "was very pleased" when he learned Monday he would face no foreign lobbying charges, his attorney told ABC News.

MORE: Rudy Giuliani set to testify in Georgia criminal probe about 2020 election

The attorney, Bob Costello, said he informed Giuliani shortly after the U.S. attorney's office issued its letter.

"We are very pleased that they did this," Costello said. "I'm not surprised that they did this because I saw the evidence, or lack thereof, and knew Rudy Giuliani didn't do anything wrong."

 

"They deviated from office policy by issuing a statement like this, which is very nice, because there's a memorialization now that Rudy Giuliani didn't do anything wrong in Ukraine." Costello added he wished prosecutors had done it sooner.

 

PHOTO: Rudy Giuliani arrives at the Fulton County Courthouse on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022, in Atlanta. (John Bazemore/AP, FILE)

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment beyond the letter that was filed on the public docket.

Costello had denied any wrongdoing by his client speaking to ABC News at the time Giuliani's home and office were raided last year.

"They're trying to make Rudy Giuliani look like a criminal. He has done nothing wrong," Costello said in April 2021.

MORE: What we know about the investigation into Rudy Giuliani

On April 28, 2021, Giuliani was awoken by federal agents at 6 a.m. at his home on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Costello told ABC News. Agents took electronic devices, including Giuliani's cellphone, while at his office they seized devices, including a computer belonging to longtime Giuliani assistant Jo Ann Zafonte, Costello said.

Giuliani, though he is now off the hook in the Southern District of New York, he remains a target of criminal investigators in Georgia over his role in seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

ABC News' Lucien Bruggeman, Olivia Rubin, Mark Crudele and John Santucci contributed to this report.

Federal prosecutors decline to file charges against Rudy Giuliani following FBI raid originally appeared on abcnews.go.com