Rudy Giuliani says law enforcement is ‘trying to frame’ him after raid on apartment

Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has come up with a theory to explain why authorities took the drastic step of raiding his home.

Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has lashed out at federal authorities in the United States, claiming they’re “trying to frame” him for a crime.

Investigators executed a search warrant at Mr Giuliani’s home and office in New York City last Thursday, and seized several electronic devices.

They are reportedly examining whether he violated the law by lobbying the US government on behalf of foreign officials without disclosing that relationship to the Justice Department, as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Mr Giuliani, a former prosecutor who served as mayor of New York from 1994-2001, led Mr Trump’s legal team in its fruitless efforts to overturn last year’s presidential election result in court.

Before that, he featured prominently in the series of events that led to Mr Trump’s first impeachment, as he dug for dirt on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.

RELATED: Early morning raid on Rudy Giuliani’s apartment

Rudy Giuliani. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

Speaking to Fox News today, Mr Giuliani said law enforcement officials’ decision to raid his home showed they were “out of control”.

“At about 6am, there was a banging on my door, a very loud banging, and outside there was a group of an endless number of FBI agents,” he said.

“Usually, a person who has been a former assistant US attorney, a US attorney, a mayor, the associate attorney-general – usually they receive a subpoena, not have their home raided.

“The only lawyers they raid are lawyers for Donald Trump. I can’t think of another lawyer that has been raided other than lawyers for Trump.

“Trump is in a special category because he doesn’t have constitutional rights.”

Authorities also investigated Mr Trump’s previous lawyer, Michael Cohen, who eventually pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud.

The campaign finance charges related to more than $US100,000 in payments Cohen made to an adult film actress, Stephanie Clifford, to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Mr Trump before the 2016 election.

Cohen said he made the payments at Mr Trump’s direction. The former president denies it, and indeed denies there was any such affair in the first place. Ms Clifford, for her part, says Mr Trump is lying.

RELATED: Porn star reveals regrets over encounter with Trump

Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

Giuliani raid was a rare occurrence

Mr Giuliani is correct that it’s rare for investigators to search the home and office of a lawyer.

To obtain the search warrant, they needed to persuade a judge that there was sufficient reason to believe the locations contained evidence of a crime.

“They showed me a warrant that sought the electronics in my apartment and purported to be about an alleged violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act for failure to file as a foreign agent on behalf of an unnamed Ukrainian official,” Mr Giuliani told Fox News, stressing that he “never did this”.

“I am a lawyer for 51 years, I formerly ran that office.” (He was formerly US attorney for the Southern District of New York.)

“I know the criminal law and I do not violate it.”

He said there was “absolutely no one” he’d represented who could have got him in trouble with the law in question.

“There is no way on Earth that they could have anyone telling the truth that I was acting as a foreign agent,” Mr Giuliani said.

“Nor do they have any evidence that I tried to influence the government on behalf of clients.

“They are beyond the ability to control their rational thinking or their decency, and they have a serious, serious ethical issue, driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome.

“They are trying to frame me. They are trying to find something they can make into a crime, some technical violation, some mistake I made.”

Rudy Giuliani. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Investigation centres on Ukrainian ambassador’s removal

In 2019, Mr Trump was preparing for his re-election campaign. Mr Biden, who eventually beat him and is now President, was seen as his most likely opponent.

Mr Giuliani spent a significant amount of time seeking information that could damage Mr Biden, specifically focusing on the business dealings of his son Hunter, who had served on the board of an energy company called Burisma in Ukraine while his father was vice president.

Prosecutors are reportedly interested in the role Mr Giuliani played in pushing Mr Trump to fire the then-US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Mr Trump ultimately did remove her, in May of 2019.

“As he was pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens, Mr Giuliani became fixated on removing the ambassador, whom he saw as an obstacle to his efforts,” The New York Times reported when it broke the news of last week’s search.

“As part of the investigation into Mr Giuliani, prosecutors have explored whether he was working not only for Mr Trump, but also for Ukrainian officials or businesses who wanted the ambassador to be dismissed for their own reasons.”

Meanwhile, The Times is among multiple media outlets that published corrections in recent days, retracting reports that the FBI warned Mr Giuliani he was the subject of a Russian operation to influence the US election in 2019.

The other outlets were NBC News and The Washington Post. NBC now says a briefing was prepared for Mr Giuliani, but was never delivered to him, partly due to concerns that it would complicate the investigation into his actions.

Mr Giuliani responded to the corrections by demanding the outlets reveal “their sources who lied and targeted an American citizen”.

Originally published as Rudy Giuliani says law enforcement is ‘trying to frame’ him after raid on apartment