Giuliani probe awaits AG upon confirmation
Trump-era issues will be addressed
NEW YORK — With Merrick Garland poised to be confirmed as attorney general as early as next week, one of the first major questions he is likely to encounter is what to do about Rudy Giuliani.
A federal probe into the overseas and business dealings of the former New York City mayor and close ally of former President Donald Trump stalled last year over a dispute over investigative tactics as Mr. Trump sought re-election and amid Mr. Giuliani’s prominent role in subsequently disputing the results of the contest on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
But the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan has returned to the question of bringing a criminal case against Mr. Giuliani, focusing in part on whether he broke U.S. lobbying laws by failing to register as a foreign agent related to his work, according to one current and one former law enforcement official familiar with the inquiry. The officials weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing case and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The arrival of a new leadership team in Washington is likely to guarantee a fresh look at the investigation. No matter how it unfolds, the probe ensures that a Justice Department looking to move forward after a tumultuous four years will nonetheless have to confront unresolved, and politically charged, questions from the Trump era — not to mention calls from some Democrats to investigate Mr. Trump himself.
The full scope of the investigation is unclear, but it at
least partly involves Mr. Giuliani’s Ukraine dealings, the officials said.
Mr. Giuliani was central to the then-president’s efforts to dig up dirt against Democratic rival Joe Biden and to press Ukraine for an investigation into Mr. Biden and his son Hunter — who now faces a criminal tax probe by the Justice Department.
Mr.Giuliani also sought to undermine the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who was pushed out on Mr. Trump’s orders, and met several times with a Ukrainian lawmaker who released edited recordings of Mr. Biden in an effort to smear him before the election.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires people who lobby on behalf of a foreign government or entity to register with the Justice Department. The once-obscure law, aimed at improving transparency, has received a burst of attention in recent years, particularly during an investigation by former special counsel Robert Mueller that revealed an array of foreign influence operations in the U.S.
Federal prosecutors in
Manhattan pushed last year for a search warrant for records, including some of Mr. Giuliani’s communications, but officials in the Trump Justice Department would not sign off on the request, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation who insisted on anonymity to speak about an ongoing investigation.
Officials in the deputy attorney general’s office raised concerns about both the scope of the request — which they thought would contain communications that could be covered by legal privilege between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump — and the method of obtaining the records, three of the people said.
The Justice Department requires that applications for search warrants served on lawyers be approved by senior department officials.
“They decided it was prudent to put it off until the dust settled, and the dust has settled now,” said Kenneth F. McCallion, a former federal prosecutor who represents Ukrainian clients relevant to the inquiry and has been in contact with federal authorities about the investigation.