U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani speaks as Trump supporters gather by the White House ahead of his speech to contest the certification by the U.S. Congress of the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Washington, January 6, 2021.
Jim Bourg | Reuters
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will not face criminal charges in an investigation related to his efforts in Ukraine to help former President Donald Trump politically, federal prosecutors told a judge Monday.
Giuliani, a former top federal prosecutor who has acted as Trump’s personal lawyer in the past, faced a grand jury probe in the Southern District of New York for two years related to his work in Ukraine.
The grand jury was examining whether he violated the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, and his attempts to oust Marie Yovanovitch, the American ambassador there.
Federal agents seized his electronic devices in New York in April 2021 as part of that investigation.
“The Government writes to notify the Court that the grand jury investigation that led to the issuance of the above-referenced warrants has concluded, and that based on information currently available to the Government, criminal charges are not forthcoming,” U.S. Attorney in Manhattan Damian Williams wrote Judge J. Paul Oetken on Monday.
Williams asked the judge in the same letter to terminate the appointment of former federal judge Barbara Jones as a special master, or watchdog, to review documents seized from Giuliani.
Giuliani’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, told CNBC, “It’s very rare for the Southern District of New York to make such a definitive comment” about declining to press criminal charges.
“And we are very pleased but not surprised that they have done so,” Aidala said.
Giuliani, along with Trump, still faces an ongoing criminal probe by a grand jury in Georgia, which is investigating interference in that state’s presidential election in 2020.
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