Rudy Giuliani attorneys cite communications with Trump as they challenge legitimacy of 2019 iCloud account search

Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani cited communications he would have had with then-President Donald Trump in a letter to a judge attacking the legitimacy of a 2019 federal search warrant for an iCloud account belonging to the former New York City mayor.

That search, which until recently was unknown to Giuliani, came two years before the search in late April of his Manhattan apartment and office as part of an ongoing federal criminal probe related to Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine.

In 2019, Giuliani and other allies of Trump had sought damaging information on now-President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, whose business dealings in Ukraine had come under scrutiny.

Those efforts to dig up dirt on the Bidens became a central component of Trump’s first impeachment proceedings. Trump was impeached in the House and acquitted in the Senate.

Giuliani’s lawyers argue that there are serious questions about the legitimacy of the iCloud warrant and the propriety of federal prosecutors reviewing material seized from it because of the risk of violating attorney-client privilege attached to both Giuliani and Trump.

Giuliani has served as Trump’s personal lawyer.

“In this case, federal prosecutors have taken the unprecedented step of covertly seizing data and files of the personal attorney to the former President of the United States,” wrote the lawyers, Robert Costello and Arthur Aidala, to Manhattan federal court Judge J. Paul Oetken in their letter sent last week.

“Prior to the executions of the warrants at issue [executed] prosecutors obtained the entirety of Giuliani’s iCloud, which certainly had communications with, and on behalf of, the sitting President, containing material relating to the impending impeachment, the welfare of the country, and to national security,” the attorneys wrote in the letter, which was unsealed Monday.

The lawyers asked Oetken to unseal the 2019 iCloud warrant so that they can review the legitimacy of affidavits that would have been filed as part of an application to a judge to get permission for prosecutors to seize Giuliani’s data while he was working for Trump.

“Another reason Giuliani should be entitled to review the Government’s application is the possibility that information seized in secret and kept secret from Giuliani for a year and a half was leaked to the House Impeachment Committee,” the letter said.

The lawyers told Oetken that they want him to first resolve whether prosecutors’ conduct regarding Giuliani has been legal before he considers whether to appoint a so-called special master to review material seized from his office and home. The special master would determine what information seized in the recent raid is privileged, and what can be turned over to federal investigators.

“The validity of the 2019 covert warrant, and the handling of the information obtained by the prosecutor are serious questions that must be resolved before any further damage is done,” wrote the lawyers.

“Moreover, the fruits of that 2019 search were certainly used in some part to secure the 2021 largely duplicative search warrant and subsequent seizures,” the letter said. “It is for those reasons that it is premature to consider a special master before these critical issues are resolved.”

FBI agents seized electronic devices from Giuliani’s home and office during the searches on April 28.

Giuliani’s lawyers said in their letter that they have “serious concern over the broad and sweeping nature of the searches executed on an attorney’s home and law office, and the covert search and review of the same attorney’s iCloud account in 2019, and then, the failure to give notice to Giuliani and his clients, and withholding information about that search for 18 months.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/17/rudy-giuliani-lawyers-cite-trump-communication-in-challenge-to-search-warrant.html