Rudy Giuliani

At 79 years old, Rudy Giuliani has this physical status:

Rudolph Louis Giuliani (born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He served as the United States Attorney General from 1981 to 1983, and as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1989 to 1989.

Giuliani was involved in the federal trial of New York City mafia bosses as the United States Attorney for New York's Southern District in 1980s. After a failed bid for Mayor of New York City in the 1989 race, he won in 1993 and 1997, running on a "tough on crime" platform. From 1994 to 2001, he was in charge of New York's turbulent "civic revival" as its mayor. William Bratton, an outsider, was named as New York City's new police commissioner by Mayor Giuliani. They used the broken windows model to reimagine the police department's administration and policing practices for recruiting loitering addicts, panhandlers, and prostitutes, followed by serious and violent criminals. For example, Giuliani banned panhandlers and sex clubs from Times Square. Giuliani was praised by crime rates as crime rates fell dramatically, well ahead of the national average pace, but later commentators cite other contributing factors. He ran for a US Senate seat from New York against First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2000, but he dropped out after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was dubbed "America's mayor" for his mayoral leadership following the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was named Person of the Year by Time magazine in 2001, and Princess Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom presented him with an honorary knighthood in 2002.

Giuliani Partners, a security consulting company, was founded in 2002 and later sold Giuliani Capital Advisors, an investment banking company. He joined a law firm in 2005 and renamed Bracewell & Giuliani. Giuliani, the Republican nominee for the primary election in 2008, was an early front runner but later ditched and endorsed the party's new nominee, John McCain. Giuliani, who declined to run for governor of New York in 2010 and for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, concentrated on the operations of his business companies. In addition,, he has been frequently asked for public speaking, political analysis, and Republican campaign assistance.

In April 2018, Giuliani joined President Donald Trump's personal legal team. The activities of Trump's counsel have sparked renewed media scrutiny, including allegations that he was involved in dishonesty and profiteering. Giuliani was reportedly under federal probe for breaching lobbying legislation, as well as other allegations, as a central figure in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which resulted in Trump's first impeachment. Following the 2020 presidential election, Trump appeared in several lawsuits filed in an attempt to reverse the election results, including false and debunked charges regarding rigged voting machines, polling place fraud, and an international communist conspiracy. Giuliani spoke at the rally leading up to the United States Capitol attack on January 6, where he denied allegations of voter manipulation and called for "trial by combat" in lieu. As a result, his license to practice law was suspended in New York State and in the District of Columbia in July 2021.

Early life

Giuliani was born in 1944 in the East Flatbush section of New York City's borough of Brooklyn, the only child of working-class parents Helen (née D'Avanzo, 1909–1981) and Harold Angelo Giuliani (1908–1981), both children of Italian immigrants. Giuliani's paternal grandparents (Rodolfo and Evangelina Giuliani) were born in Montecatini, Tuscany, Italy, and he is of Tuscan descent on his father's side. He was born a Roman Catholic. Harold Giuliani, a plumber and a bartender, was found guilty of criminal assault and robbery, as well as prison time in Sing Sing Sing. After being released, he served as an enforcer for Leo D'Avanzo, who operated a gang-affiliated loan sharking and gaming business at a Brooklyn restaurant. The couple lived in East Flatbush until Harold died of prostate cancer in 1981, whereupon Helen moved to Manhattan's Upper East Side.

When Giuliani was seven years old in 1951, his family moved from Brooklyn to St. Anne's Catholic school in Garden City South, where he attended the local Catholic school. He returned to Brooklyn later to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, having graduated in 1961.

Giuliani studied at University College in Riverdale, Bronx, where he majored in political science with a minor in philosophy and aspirations to become a priest. Giuliani was elected president of his class in his sophomore year but not re-elected in his junior year. He was a member of Phi Rho Pi college's forensic fraternity and honor society. He graduated in 1965. Giuliani decided against the priesthood and instead attended the New York University School of Law in Manhattan, where he served on the NYU Law Review and graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 1968.

Giuliani began his political career as a Democrat. In 1968, he volunteered for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. In the mid-90s, he served as a member of the Democratic Party Committee on Long Island and voted for George McGovern for president in 1972.

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Legal career

Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd Francis MacMahon, United States District Judge in the Southern District of New York, after graduating from law school.

During the Vietnam War, Giuliani did not serve in the military. He was deferred while attending Manhattan College and New York University Law. After graduating from the former in 1968, he was classified 1-A (available for military service), but as Judge MacMahon's law clerk), he was reclassified 2-A (essential civilian) in 1969. Giuliani was reclassified 1-A in 1970, but the 308 draft lottery number was not released, so no one was called up for service.

In 1975, Giuliani changed his party name from Democratic to Independent. Giuliani was recruited by Ford's Washington, D.C., as the associate deputy attorney general and chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Harold "Ace" Tyler, during a period of time.

Bertram L. Podell, the Democratic Representative of the United States, was found guilty of misconduct in his first high-profile lawsuit. Podell pleaded guilty to treason and conflict of interest by allowing a Florida airline to guarantee federal recognition of a Bahama route. The payments were legitimate court charges, according to Podell, who was pursuing a law career while in Congress. "The trial brought future New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani to front-page prominence as a Washington prosecutor," the Washington Post announced later. "The trial brought an initially calm Rep. Podell to front-page status." According to reports, the congressman grew more agitated and eventually decided to enter a plea of guilty."

Giuliani served as head of staff to his former boss, Ace Tyler, from 1977 to 1981 during the Carter administration. Tyler became "disillusioned" by Giuliani's time as US Attorney, with some of his lawsuits branded "overkill."

Ronald Reagan's re-election in Washington, on December 8, 1980, he switched from Independent to Republican, just a month after Reagan's re-election in Washington. The switch, according to Giuliani, were because he found Democratic policies "nave" and that "by the time I migrated to Washington, the Republicans had come to make more sense to me." According to others, the switches were made in order to gain positions in the Justice Department. Giuliani's mother argued in 1988 that he "only became a Republican" after she began to take all of these jobs from them. He is unquestionably not a centrist Republican. He claims he is, but he isn't. He still has a profound regret for the poor.

Giuliani was named associate attorney general in the Reagan administration, the third-highest position in the Department of Justice, in 1981. Giuliani, as Associate Attorney General, supervised the federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Department, and the United States Marshals Service. Giuliani testified in favor of the federal government's "detention stance" against the detention of more than 2,000 Haitian asylum seekers who had entered the country unlawfully in a well-known 1982 lawsuit. The US government denied that the majority of the detainees had left their country due to political persecution, instead arguing that they were "economic migrants." Giuliani testified in favor of the government's position, that "political repression, at least in general," does not exist under President Jean-Claude Duvalier's reign.

Giuliani was called United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1983, a demotion, but Giuliani was appointed to prosecute cases personally, and the SDNY is often used as a springboard for running for public office. It was in this situation that he first rose to national prominence by defending numerous high-profile lawsuits that culminated in the arrests of Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. He also concentrated on prosecuting opioid dealers, organized crime, and government corruption. He has a record of 4,152 convictions and 25 reversals. Giuliani, a federal prosecutor, was credited with bringing the perp walk, or the identification of criminals in front of the recently alerted media, back to common use as a prosecutorial weapon. Following Giuliani's "inventing the perp walk," the device was used by increasing numbers of prosecutors around the country.

Giuliani's lawyers said he planned for people to be arrested but later dropped charges due to a lack of evidence in high-profile cases rather than going to trial. His detentions of suspected white-collar criminals at their workplaces with allegations that later were dismissed or lessened sparked controversy and damaged the image of the suspected "perps." Richard Wigton, a veteran stock trader, of Kidder, Peabody & Co., was guilty of insider trading in February 1987; he had officers handcuff Wigton and march him through the company's trading floor, with Wigton in tears. Giuliani's agents arrested Tim Tabor, a young arbitrageur and former Wigton employee, so late that he had to remain in jail overnight before posting bond.

Both Wigton and Tabor were cleared within three months, but Giuliani said, "We're not going to go to trial." "We're just the tip of the iceberg," Giuliani's successor said, but no further charges were forthcoming, and the probe did not conclude until Giuliani's replacement was in place. Giuliani's high-profile raid of the Princeton/Newport firm resulted in the defendants' cases being dismissed on appeal on the grounds that they were not guilty of crimes.

Giuliani was charged with eleven organized crime actors, including the heads of New York City's so-called "Fierce Family" from February 25, 1985 to November 19, 1986, as part of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO). This "case of cases" seemed to be "the most significant attack on organized crime since the high command of the Chicago Mafia was swept away in 1943," according to Time magazine, "We're going to wipe out the five families." When Gambino's underboss Thomas Bilotti were assassinated on the streets of midtown Manhattan on December 16, 1985, game boss Paul Castellano dodged conviction. On January 13, 1987, three members of the Five Families were sentenced to 100 years in jail. In separate trials, Genovese and Colombo's two founders, Tony Salerno and Carmine Persico, received additional sentences, with 70-year and 39-year sentences running consecutively. Michael Chertoff, the eventual second United States Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act; John Savarese, now a partner with Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz; and Gil Childers, a later deputy chief of the Southern District of New York and now managing director of Goldman Sachs' legal department, were both aided by three Assistant United States Attorneys; and David Cohen, the eventual deputy chief of the criminal division and now managing director of the criminal division of New York

According to an FBI memo from 2007, the Five Families' leaders voted on whether or not to give a contract for Giuliani's death in late 1986. Although Colombo and Gambino's leaders, Carmine Persico and John Gotti, the heads of the Lucchese, Bonanno, and Genovese families skepticism, the conspiracy was dismissed by the three families. Salvatore Riina, a prominent Sicilian Mafia leader and informant Rosario Naimo, had ordered a murder contract on Giuliani in 2014, before it was revealed by former Sicilian Mafia leader Salvatore Riina. Riina was reportedly suspicious of Giuliani's attempts to sue the American Mafia and was concerned that he may have met with Italian anti-Mafia lawyers and politicians, including Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were both killed in 1992 in separate car bombings. During his first year as mayor of New York in 1994, Sicilian Mafia paid $800,000 for his death, according to Giuliani.

Ivan Boesky, a Wall Street arbitrageur who had amassed $200 million by betting on corporate takeovers, was first investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for making investments based on corporate insiders' recommendations, paving the way for the investigation of the Southern District of New York by the US Attorney's Office. These stock and options deals were often impulsive, with major transactions taking place only a few days before a company announced a takeover. Although insider trade of this sort was unlawful, but criminal penalties against it were not enforced until Boesky was convicted. Boesky worked with the SEC and was informed of several others, including junk bond trader Michael Milken. Boesky, a 3+1 year prison term and a $100 million fine, as part of an agreement with Giuliani. Giuliani pleaded guilty to Milken on 98 charges of racketeering and fraud in 1989. A grand jury had charged Milken in a highly publicized lawsuit.

Giuliani's license to practice law in the state of New York had been suspended in June 2021, pending an investigation into the tense presidential election of 2020.

Post-mayoralty political career

Giuliani has been politically active since being out of office as mayor by campaigning for Republican candidates for political offices at all levels. When George Pataki became governor in 1995, it was the first time Republicans had simultaneous control of both mayor and governor positions after John Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller. Giuliani and Pataki were instrumental in the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. He was a speaker at the convention and praised President George W. Bush for re-election by recalling that the World Trade Center towers fell right after the World Trade Center towers fell.

In June 2006, Giuliani launched Solutions America to help elect Republican candidates around the country.

Since campaigning on Bush's behalf in the 2004 US presidential election, he was reportedly the top choice for Secretary of Homeland Security after Tom Ridge's departure. When rumors that Giuliani's confirmation hearings would be marred by information about his previous conduct and scandals, he turned down the invitation and instead recommended his colleague and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Following Kerik's formal announcement of his nomination, reports about his life – most notably, that he had links to organized crime – was inaccurate, and Kerik's employing an undocumented alien as a domestic servant – became public, and Kerik was nominated.

Congress established the Iraq Study Group on March 15, 2006 (ISG). Giuliani, one of the members of this bipartisan ten-person commission, was charged with investigating the Iraq war and making recommendations. They would eventually find that "the situation in Iraq is serious and deteriorating," as a result of Bush administration claims, and that "the United States must begin to move its troops out of Iraq."

Giuliani resigned from the panel on May 24, 2006, after missing all of the company's meetings, including a briefing from General David Petraeus, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki resigned, citing "previous time commitments." Giuliani's fundraising schedule had discouraged him from participating in the panel's $11.4 million in speaking fees over the past four months, and Giuliani had been compelled to resign after being told "an ultimatum" by group leader James Baker, who had been compelled to appear for meetings or leave the organization. Giuliani then said he had started thinking about running for president, and being on the commission could bring it a political twist.

Giuliani was dubbed "one of the most consistent cheerleaders for the president's treatment of the Iraqi war in January 2007" by Newsweek, and as of June 2007, he remained one of the few candidates for president to explicitly oppose both the invasion and execution of the operation.

Giuliani spoke in favour of the removal of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK, as well as PMOI, MKO) from the United States State Department's list of International Terrorist Organisations. The company appeared on the State Department's list from 1997 to September 2012. They were placed on the list for killing six Americans in Iran during the 1970s and trying to destabilize the Iranian mission to the United Nations in 1992. Giuliani, as well as other senior government officials and politicians Ed Rendell, R. James Woolsey, Porter Goss, Louis Freeh, Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Howard Dean were chastised for their service with the organization. Giuliani and others reportedly earned tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees to campaign for the MEK, but others were reportedly suspended as part of an investigation into who was paying the prominent people's speaking fees. Several commentators suggested that these individuals could be criminally charged under the PATRIOT Act for providing material support for terrorism, which Giuliani denied. Giuliani and others wrote an article for the conservative publication National Review stating that the group should not be classified as a terrorist group. They defended their position by pointing out that the United Kingdom and the European Union had already deleted the group from their terrorist lists. Only the United States and Iran, according to them, have designated it as a terrorist group. Nonetheless, Canada did not delist the company until December 2012.

Giuliani revealed in November 2006 that an exploratory committee had been formed ahead of a presidential bid in 2008. He made a "statement of candidacy" and announced on television show Larry King Live in February that he was indeed running.

Early polls showed Giuliani had one of the highest names recognition ever recorded, as well as high voter support among Republican candidates. He was the leader in the majority of national opinion polls among Republicans in the first half of 2007. Senator John McCain, who came in second place behind the New York Mayor, had faded, and the majority of polls showed Giuliani to have more support than any of the other declared Republican candidates, with only former senator Fred Thompson and former governor Mitt Romney gaining more votes in some per-state Republican polls. On November 7, 2007, Giuliani's campaign was supported by evangelist, Christian Broadcasting Network founder, and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson. Despite some of Giuliani's social policy concerns such as abortion and gay rights, political observers regarded it as a potentially significant development in the race.

During the last two months of 2007, Giuliani's campaign was in danger, with Bernard Kerik, whom Giuliani had recommended for the position of Secretary of Homeland Security, charged on 16 counts of tax fraud and other federal charges. When Giuliani was mayor of New York, he billed several tens of thousands of dollars in mayoral protection funds to obscure city departments. Those expenses were paid while visiting Judith Nathan, with whom he was having an extramarital affair (later review revealed that the bill was likely unrelated to hiding Nathan). Several articles about Giuliani Associates and Bracewell & Giuliani, which were in opposition to American foreign policy's objectives, were published in the newspaper. Giuliani's national poll numbers began steadily declining, and his unusual decision of focusing more on later, multi-primary big states than those smaller, first-voting states was seen as threatening.

Giuliani's campaign paid off to a large extent in the 2008 New Hampshire primary, but he came in fourth with 9 percent of the vote. Similar poor showings remained in other early voting, when Giuliani's staff went without pay in order to concentrate all attention on the elusive late January Republican primary in Florida. The shift of the electorate's attention away from national security to the state of the economy also hurt Giuliani, as well as McCain's revival of a similarly themed campaign. Giuliani came in third in the Florida state with 15 percent of the vote on January 29, 2008, trailing McCain and Romney. Faced with declining polls and missing leads in the forthcoming big Super Tuesday states, including those of his hometown New York, Giuliani, pulled out of the campaign on January 30, endorsing McCain.

Giuliani's campaign was behind $3.6 million in arrears, and Giuliani's campaign in June 2008 tried to reduce the debt by appearing at Republican fundraisers during the 2008 general election and earning a portion of the money to go to his campaign. Giuliani delivered a prime-time address at the 2008 Republican National Convention in which McCain lauded McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, while criticizing Democratic nominee Barack Obama. Palin praised Obama's lack of experience as mayor and governor, despite the delegates' applause, and his remarks were met with raptastic applause. During McCain's later rocky race, Giuliani maintained to be one of McCain's most adamant surrogates.

Giuliani's "pretty appearance fees plummeted like a brick" following the conclusion of his presidential campaign. He has returned to work with both Giuliani Partners and Bracewell & Giuliani. Keiko Fujimori's presidential campaign was aided by his consultant during the 2011 Peruvian general election. Giuliani also explored hosting a syndicated radio show, and was confirmed to be in talks with Westwood One about replacing Bill O'Reilly before he was defeated by Fred Thompson (another unsuccessful 2008 Republican presidential primary candidate). During the AIG bonus payments scandal in March 2009, Giuliani begged for U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign, saying that the Obama administration lacked executive experience in dealing with the unfolding financial crisis.

Giuliani said that his political career was not finished, and that no one in New York barred out a 2010 gubernatorial or 2012 presidential bid. According to a Siena College poll released in November 2008, although Governor David Paterson, who was promoted to the office as a result of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal a year before, would have just a slim advantage over Giuliani in a hypothetical matchup. A Siena College poll revealed Paterson was losing traction among New Yorkers, leading Giuliani with a fifteen-point lead in the hypothetical contest by February 2009. Giuliani said in January 2009 that he would not decide on a gubernatorial bid for another six to eight months, and that he didn't feel it would be fair to the governor to campaign early while the governor continues to concentrate on his duties. Giuliani continued to pay down his presidential campaign debt by the end of March 2009, the most outstanding figure among any of the 2008 candidates. Giuliani reacted angrily to Paterson's call for same-sex marriage in New York in April 2009, saying it would likely result in a backlash that might place Republicans in statewide office in 2010. There were already conflicting reports about whether Giuliani was likely to run by late August 2009.

Giuliani said on December 23, 2009, he would not pursue any office in 2010, "The primary reason had to do with my two businesses, Bracewell & Giuliani, and Giuliani Partners." Both work and play a lot. The decisions brought an end to Giuliani's political career. Giuliani supported and campaigned for Bob Ehrlich and Marco Rubio in the 2010 midterm elections.

Giuliani declared on October 11, 2011, that he did not run for president. Giuliani, the Long Island Association's founder, said, "As a moderate, he found it to be a big challenge." "If it's too late for (New Jersey Governor) Chris Christie to run in GOP primaries, it's impossible to be a moderate and win in GOP primaries," Giuliani said.

Giuliani said, "I don't believe, and I know this is a sad thing to say," and "I do not believe that the president Obama loves America." And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were born and I was brought up by the love of this nation." Giuliani said, "Some people thought it was racist, I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother..." This isn't bigotry. This is socialism or perhaps anti-colonialism." Eric Schultz, the White House deputy press secretary, said he agreed with Giuliani "that it was a sad thing to say," but he'd leave it up to the people who heard Giuliani's words specifically to determine if the event was appropriate. Giuliani said he had received several suicide threats within 48 hours, although he had some praise for his inflammatory remarks.

In the 2016 US presidential election, Giuliani endorsed Donald Trump. On the first night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, he gave a prime time address. Giuliani and former 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson appeared at a rally for the pro-Trump Great America PAC earlier in the day. Giuliani's ads "Leadership" appeared in a Great America PAC commercial. At Trump's rallies, Giuliani's and Jeff Sessions' appearances were staples.

During the campaign, Giuliani lauded Trump for his global success and assisting fellow New Yorkers in times of need. Trump denied allegations of bigotry, sexual harassment, and not having to pay any federal income taxes for as long as two decades, and defended him.

In August 2016, Giuliani, who was campaigning for Trump, said that "we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States" eight years before Obama assumed office. It was reported that 9/11 occurred during George W. Bush's first term. To Giuliani's assertion, Politifact provided four more counter-examples (the 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting, the 2002 Washington D.C. sniper attacks, the 2006 UNC SUV attack, and the 2006 London Jewish Federation massacre). Giuliani later confessed to using "abbreviated words."

Giuliani was expected to be a good choice for secretary of state in the Trump administration. However, Trump denied Giuliani's name from consideration for any Cabinet post on December 9, 2016.

On January 12, 2017, the president-elect named Giuliani as his informal cybersecurity advisor. Giuliani's informal role is uncertain because Trump established the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), led by Christopher Krebs as the head and Matthew Travis as deputy. Giuliani was forced to consult an Apple Store Genius Bar after being locked out of his iPhone because he'd forgotten the passcode and entered the wrong one at least ten times," delaying his putative field experience.

Giuliani said in January 2017 that he aided President Trump in matters relating to Executive Order 13769, which banned citizens of seven Muslim-majorities countries from entering the country for 90 days. The order has also banned the admission of all refugees for a year.

Giuliani has come under fire for his links to foreign countries if not registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).

Giuliani joined Trump's legal team in mid-April 2018, which dealt with Robert Mueller's special counsel probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections. Giuliani said he wanted to end the investigation quickly.

Giuliani made a public statement in early May that Trump had paid his personal counsel Michael Cohen $130,000 that Cohen had paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels for refusing to speak out about her suspected affair with Trump. Cohen had previously stated that he used his own money to compensate Daniels, but he denied that he had been reimbursed. Trump had previously stated that he had no idea about it. Giuliani said that some of his own remarks about this topic were "more rumor than anything else" within a week.

Giuliani, who was asked whether the Spygate conspiracy theory is meant to discredit the special counsel probe, said the investigators "are giving us the details to do it later this week." Of course, we've got to do it in support of Trump, but it's for public opinion" that determines whether or not we should impeach" him. A sitting president cannot be charged, Giuliani said in June 2018: "I don't know how you can indict while he's in office." No matter what it is. If President Trump fired [then-FBI director] James Comey, he'd be impeached the next day. Impeach him, and you'll do whatever you want to do to him."

Trump should not testify to the special counsel probe, according to Giuliani in June 2018 because "our memories keep shifting." Giuliani pleaded with Comey to "give him [then-national security advisor Michael Flynn] a break" in early July. Giuliani denied making this remark in mid-August: "What I said was, that is what Comey says." Giuliani argued on Meet the Press on August 19 that Trump should not testify to the special counsel probe because Trump might be "trapped into perplexity" by simply informing "somebody's version of the truth." This is not the truth. "Reality isn't truth," Giuliani's argument continued. Giuliani later clarified that he was "referring to a situation in which two people make specific contradictory claims."

Giuliani defended Trump in late July, saying that "collusion is not a murder" and that Trump did not do anything wrong because he "didn't hack" or "pay for the hacking." He later explained that his remarks were a "very, very familiar lawyer's argument" to "attack the legitimacy of the special counsel probe." He also denied several possible charges that have never been raised in connection with two previous meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian civilians on June 9, 2016. Giuliani said in late August that the Trump Tower "meeting was initially for the intention of finding details about Hillary Clinton."

In late July, Giuliani also branded Trump's former personal counsel Michael Cohen as a "incredible liar," two months after she branded Cohen a "honest, honorable prosecutor." Giuliani defended Trump in mid-August by boasting, "The president is an honest man."

Giuliani was announced in early September that the White House may and likely would discourage the special counsel probe from disclosing confidential information in its final report, which would be covered by executive privilege. According to Giuliani, Trump's personal counsel department is also planning a "counter-report" to debunk the information from the potential special counsel probe.

Giuliani has advised Trump to extradite Fethullah Gülen in 2017.

In late 2019, Giuliani defended Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, who pleaded not to press charges against him after a meeting with the Justice Department to ask not to press charges against him.

Giuliani, a Roman Catholic of Italian descent, said, "Don't tell me I'm anti-Semitic if I oppose George Soros." I'm more of a Jew than Soros. George Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who survived the Holocaust, is a historian of The Holocaust. "Mr. Giuliani should apologize and retract his remarks immediately if he wishes to dog whistle hardcore anti-Semites and white supremacists who believe this garbage," the Anti-Defamation League said.

Giuliani said he did not work on clemency cases because he had enough funds in the last days of the Trump administration, when White House staff were requesting fees to lobby for presidential pardons. I'm not starving."

Giuliani was not legally involved in any of Trump's pending litigation as of February 16, 2021.

Giuliani has been calling for Ukraine's newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to look into Burisma's board of directors, which once included Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden, and to look for suspicious misconduct in Ukraine's indictment of Paul Manafort. He said that such probes will help his client's safety, and that his campaigns had total support from Trump. Giuliani met with Ukrainian officials all through 2019. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Soviet-born Americans, were liaisons between Giuliani and Ukrainian government officials in this campaign, according to Buzzfeed News in July. Parnas and Fruman, two prolific Republican contributors, have neither registered as foreign agents in the United States nor been inspected and approved by the State Department. "This (report) is a sad effort to mask what are widespread allegations of criminality by the Biden family," Giuliani said. However, by September 2019, there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

As of October 1, 2019, Giuliani recruited former Watergate prosecutor Jon Sale to represent him in the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment probe. The committee also ordered Giuliani to hand over information relating to the Ukraine affair. On October 11, 2019, the New York Times announced that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which Giuliani had once led, was looking into him for violating lobbying laws pertaining to his activities in Ukraine. Following Bloomberg News' announcement that the probe may have spanned foreign officials' or covert conspiracy, Giuliani's investigation might have spanned a financial motive in a Ukrainian natural gas venture, according to The Wall Street Journal. Giuliani has denied having an interest in a Ukrainian natural gas venture. The Wall Street Journal announced in late November that federal prosecutors had just ordered subpoenas to several Giuliani associates to potentially prosecute certain individuals, including Giuliani, on a variety of criminal charges, including money laundering, unlawful conduct, conspiracy to defraud the US, making inaccurate reports to the federal government, and mail/wire fraud.

When attempting to board a one-way flight from Washington Dulles International Airport on October 9, 2019, Parnas and Fruman were arrested for campaign finance theft. Giuliani was paid $500,000 to advise Lev Parnas' firm, "Fraud Promise." In two $250,000 payments, Republican donor and Trump advocate Charles Gucciardo paid Giuliani on behalf of Fraud Guarantee in September and October 2018. In September 2021, Fruman pleaded guilty to having solicited a contribution by a foreign national.

Giuliani called Ukraine's chief prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, a "much more honest guy" than his predecessor, Viktor Shokin, in May 2019. Lutsenko was voted out of office by the Bidens in September 2019 after he noticed no signs of wrongdoing by the Bidens, and that he had seen Giuliani about ten times. Giuliani changed his position, saying that Shokin is the one people "should have spoken to," while Lutsenko acted "corruptly" and "is exactly the prosecutor who Joe Biden retained in order to tank the lawsuit."

Giuliani went on CNN in September to investigate the situation after reports revealed that a whistleblower was suspected of high-level misconduct relating to Ukraine. When asked whether he had attempted to persuade Biden, he answered "No, actually I didn't," but thirty seconds later, "Of course I did." In a later tweet, Trump appeared to have denied reports that military assistance funds were planned for Ukraine unless they opened the probe. "The truth is that the president of the United States, whoever he is, has every right to tell the president of another nation that you should check out the graft in your country if you want me to give you a large sum of money." Our money is going to be squandered if you're so corrupt that you can't investigate allegations.

Giuliani's assertion that Ukraine was complicit in 2016 US election meddling was "debunked," according to Thomas Bossert, a former Homeland Security Advisor in the Trump administration; Giuliani said Bossert "doesn't know what the hell he's talking about."

On September 30, 2019, the House Intelligence Committee ordered Giuliani to hand over information concerning the Ukraine affair to Committee members by October 15, 2019. Steve Linick, the State Department's inspector general, delivered a 40-page packet of apparent disinformation regarding former vice president Joe Biden and former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to Capitol Hill on October 2, 2019. Linick met with congressional aides from his office, questioning Ulrich Brechbuhl, Pompeo's counsel, about the packet's sources. Brechbuhl said the box came from Pompeo, who said it "came over," and Brechbuhl reportedly assumed it was from the White House. Giuliani confessed that he gave Pompeo the packet containing Ukraine and Yovanovich's attacks on Yovanovich later that day. He said in a November 2019 interview that he had "needed Yovanovitch out of the way" because she would delay his investigations. "They (the State Department) told me they would look at it," Giuliani continued. In spring 2019, Giuliani begged Trump to dismiss Yovanovich from office. The role of Giuliani and his associates in Yovanovitch's dismissal by the US attorney's office in Manhattan by April 2021 was being investigated by the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan.

Trump delegated America's foreign policy on Ukraine to Giuliani, according to US ambassador Gordon Sondland. Giuliani's conduct concerning Ukraine dominated the late 2019 impeachment probe into Donald Trump. Giuliani's name was more prominent in the collected testimony and in the House Intelligence Committee's December reports than Trump's. According to several commentators, Giuliani may have broken the Logan Act.

Giuliani wrote to Senator Lindsey Graham, chairwoman of the Judiciary, informing him of at least three witnesses from Ukraine, who, Giuliani said, had direct oral, documentary, and evidence of Democratic criminal plots to avoid Trump's election and ousting him from office by contrived charges after his election. Giuliani's letter also states that the witnesses had evidence of the Biden family's involvement in bribes, money laundering, Hobbs Act extortion, and other suspected offences. The letter requested Graham's help getting visas for the witnesses to testify in the United States. Graham invited Giuliani to test his findings with the Judiciary Committee next month, and he was immediately advised by Graham, "to discuss what he learned from Ukraine with the [intelligence community] to ensure it is not Russia propaganda."

Dmytry Firtash is a Ukrainian oligarch who is well-known in the natural gas industry. In 2017, the Justice Department described him as a "upper echelon (associate) of Russian organized crime. Since his detention in Vienna, Austria, on American authorities' behest, he has been living on $155 million bail while fighting extradition to the United States on bribery and racketeering charges and has been trying to have the charges dismissed. Viktor Shokin, the former Ukrainian prosecutor general who was put under pressure from numerous countries and non-governmental organizations, as reported to Ukraine by Joe Biden, got a statement from Firtash's attorneys in September 2019. In the argument that Biden fired him because he refused to suspend his probe into Burisma, Shokin mistakenly stated that he had been fired. Giuliani, who claims he has "nothing to do with" and has "never met or talked to" Firtash, has portrayed the claim in television interviews as proof of wrongdoing by the Bidens. Giuliani told CNN that he spent two hours in New York City with a Firtash prosecutor at the time when he was looking for details about the Bidens.

Joseph diGenova and his partner Victoria Toensing, who were hired on Parnas' recommendation in July 2019, are represented by Firtash. Giuliani had advised Parnas to contact Firtash with the suggestion in November 2019, with the argument that Firtash may have helped provide damaging information on Biden, which Parna's attorney said was "part of any potential solution to [Firtash's] extradition controversy." It was prepared "at the behest of lawyers for Dmitry Firtash ('DF'), according to Shokin's resuming of it in Austria court proceedings. During American television appearances, Giuliani spoke about the Shokin. According to Bloomberg News, Firtash employees began digging up dirt on the Bidens in the summer of 2019 in the hopes of obtaining Giuliani's assistance in Firtash's legal matters. As it would appear to be a political quid pro quo, Bloomberg News also reported that Giuliani's high-profile coverage of the Shokin statement had considerably reduced the chances of the Justice Department dropping the charges against Firtash. As they both worked in the Reagan Justice Department, diGenova said he has known U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr for thirty years. The Washington Post announced on October 22 that after starting representing Firtash, Toensing, and diGenova, they had a rare face-to-face meeting with Barr to insist that the Firtash charges should be dismissed, but Barr refused to intervene, but they refused to intervene.

Giuliani referred to this controversy as a "very, very important" foreign bribery matter involving a client of his, according to The New York Times on October 18, weeks before his associates Parnas and Fruman were charged. The Times did not identify the defendant, but Giuliani told a reporter that it was not Firtash shortly after the story was published. The Justice Department announced two days later that officials would not have met with Giuliani if they knew his associates were under scrutiny by the SDNY.

The House Intelligence Committee's report on December 3, 2019, contained phone calls made by Giuliani between April and August 2019, 159-159. Chairman Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee announced after the report's publication that if "-1" refers to President Trump, he was probing whether "-1" related to him, quoting grand jury evidence from the trial of accused Trump-associate Roger Stone, in which the phone number "-1" appeared to refer to Trump. Analyst Philip Bump argued that Giuliani's calls with "-1" are 'likely' calls, and that, after Giuliani's calls with "-1" ended, some of President Trump's calls with "-1" were mishandled, and that "-1" is more definite than any other person.

Giuliani returned to Ukraine in early December 2019 to interview former Ukrainian officials for a documentary series aimed at discrediting the impeachment process. Giuliani may have been identified as a target of Russian intelligence efforts from early in Trump's presidency, particularly after Giuliani shifted his attention to Ukraine, a former Soviet republic under threat from Russia and deep penetration by Russian intelligence agencies. According to analysts, Trump's and Giuliani's habit of speaking over unencrypted lines makes it likely that foreign intelligence agencies are monitoring a primary target's information about the president's intercepted calls with Giuliani; and that foreign intelligence companies routinely gather intelligence about a primary target by monitoring other people related to that concern.

Former FBI chief, CIA chief, and federal judge William Webster characterized "a serious threat to the rule of law in the world I love" in a December 2019 opinion piece. In addition to chastising President Trump and attorney general Bill Barr, Webster expressed disappointment in Rudy Giuliani's "long-serving friends" because his "activities concerning Ukraine had, at least, failed the smell test of propriety. Webster had been chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council since 2005.

SDNY investigators, who were announced in late 2019 to be investigating Giuliani's investigations, had discussed with Justice Department officials in Washington the possibility of acquiring Giuliani's emails, which would need to be granted by attorney privileges. In February 2021, the New York Times announced that Giuliani's electronic records had been requested by the SDNY in summer 2020, but the bureau's headquarters was met with resistance from high-level political appointees, ostensibly because the election was near, but career officials were supportive of the search warrant. The Justice Department generally avoids taking serious steps concerning political figures that might not be published within 60 days of an election. Nevertheless, senior political figures still opposing the campaign following the election, noting that Giuliani was a leading factor in contesting the election results. The officials waited for the new Biden administration to handle the situation.

On the early morning of April 28, 2021, federal investigators in Manhattan served search warrants in Giuliani's office and Upper East Side apartment, confiscating his electronics and inspecting the apartment. The FBI served a search warrant on Toensing's Washington, D.C. home and confiscated her cellphone, according to a FBI investigator. Investigators told Giuliani's attorney that they searched his iCloud account beginning in late 2019, prompting a judge that the search was unlawful and, in turn, the subsequent raid on Giuliani's homes was "fruit of this poisoned tree," asking to review evidence supporting the iCloud search. The SDNY announced in a court filing that in late 2019 it obtained search warrants for Giuliani's iCloud account and Toensing's Toensing, among other things, "an ongoing, multi-year grand jury probe into conduct involving Giuliani, Toensing, and others," and that lawyers for Giuliani, Toensing were not permitted to access the warrants before they were charged. Giuliani and Toensing argued that their attorney-client privileges with clients may have been harmed by the iCloud searches, which investigators denied, saying they sent a "filter team" to discourage them from seeing information that might not be covered by attorney-client privileges. Federal Judge J. Paul Oetken ruled in favor of the warrant documents and granted investigators' request for a special master to ensure attorney-client privileges were retained. In January 2022, Giuliani's communications to prosecutors increased by more than 3,000 people, with the decision to withhold forty messages for which Giuliani had asserted "privilege and/or high" status, despite dismissing 37 of Giuliani's claims.

In February 2021, the New York Times announced that the SDNY was investigating Giuliani's relationship with Firtash in attempts to denigrate the Bidens, as well as attempts to lobby the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs. Time revealed in May 2021 that it had spoken to three unidentified witnesses who were interrogated by investigators, two of whom said they had worked with Giuliani while investigating with investigators; another witness said investigators were particularly interested in Giuliani's relationship with Firtash.

According to a report published in March 2021 by the United States intelligence service, Ukrainian politician Andrii Derkach was among Russian intelligence agents who promoted and laundered inaccurate or unsubstantiated stories about Biden "to US media companies, US officials, and influential US citizens, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." In December 2019, Giuliani met with Derkachach.

Forensic News announced in April 2021 that the SDNY probe into Giuliani had expanded to include a criminal investigation into Derkach and Andrii Artemenko. The New York Times announced weeks later that Derkach was the object of a federal probe into foreign meddling in the 2020 US elections. The Times announced that "federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are probing whether several Ukrainian officials orchestrated a wide-ranging plot to meddle in the 2020 presidential race, including using Rudolph W. Giuliani to spread their inaccurate information about President Biden and tilt the election in favour of Donald J. Trump."

"Rudy Giuliani persistently pressed and coaxed the Ukrainian government to investigate baseless conspiracies against then-candidate Joe Biden," CNN published exclusive recordings of a 2019 phone call from Giuliani to Ukraine on June 8, 2021.

Trump appointed Giuliani in charge of litigation relating to suspected voter fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election, after Joe Biden was named president-elect. Giuliani was named by Trump to lead a legal team in contesting the election results. Sidney Powell, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis were among the team's numerous incorrect and unsubstantiated charges regarding an international Communist conspiracy, wired voting machines, and polling place fraud on November 19 at a self-described "elite strike force" that included Sidney Powell, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, and campaign attorney Jenna Ellis.

Giuliani has repeatedly condemned the use of provisional ballots (in which the poll worker does not know the voter's name on the rolls), ensuring that the voter is enrolled to vote (even though Giuliani himself had cast this kind of ballot in Manhattan on October 31, 2020).

Trump and his allies had lost 63 lawsuits by January 8, 2021. Maria Ryan, Giuliani's niece, wrote a letter to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, asking that Giuliani be paid $2.5 million and get a "general pardon." According to a Trump adviser, Giuliani was no longer representing him in any pending lawsuits a month after Trump was out of office. Although Trump continued to fundraise, ostensibly for his election-related court disputes, he did not give Giuliani any of this money as of July 2021. "I do pay my lawyers who do a good job" in October 2021, a remark made by Trump in another context.

Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, a Georgia election worker, have sued Giuliani for defamation after Giuliani accused them of "walking around USB ports as if they were vials of opium or cocaine" and participating in "surprisable unlawful conduct" in December 2021, according to Moss, citing a video video clip that, according to Moss, claiming the women were wearing "gold mint" and "surrectional Moss testified before the United States House of Representatives that after Giuliani's remarks, she and her family were exposed to a barrage of racial abuses, including "Be glad it's 2020 not 1920" in reference to lynching in the United States, she and her family were exposed to a rash of racial crimes, including "Be glad it's 2020 rather than 1920."

One of the first lawsuits sought to invalidate up to 700,000 mail-in ballots and prevent Pennsylvania from certifying the election results. Giuliani said he had signed affidavits attesting to voter fraud and election official misconduct in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Despite not having litigated a lawsuit in any courthouse for over three decades, Giuliani applied for special permission to represent the Trump presidential campaign in Pennsylvania's federal court. (He misrepresented his affiliation with the District of Columbia Bar in his application, saying he was a member of good standing, but D.C. had suspended him for nonpayment of fees.) Giuliani's first day in court, on November 17, 2020, he fought with rudimentary court processes and was accused by lawyers for the Pennsylvania Secretary of State of making "disgraceful in a American courthouse." Judge Matthew Brann wondered how Giuliani might justify "esking this court to invalidate 6.8 million votes, effectively disenfranchizing every single voter in the commonwealth."

On November 21, 2020, his federal trial against Pennsylvania was dismissed with prejudice, with the judge citing "strained legal arguments without foundation and speculative charges" that were "unsupported by evidence. Giuliani and Jenna Ellis responded with a statement that the decision "helps" the Trump campaign "get expeditiously to the Supreme Court." Several others pointed out that Matthew W. Brann, the judge, was also "obama-appointed," although Brann is both a Republican and a former member of the right-leaning Federalist Society.

The Trump campaign appealed the case to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge jury dismissed the Trump campaign's attempt to reverse Pennsylvania's vote recognition on November 27 because "debates have no merit." The panel also found that the District Court was correct in refusing to allow the Trump campaign to launch a second revision of its complaint. The judges ruled that an amendment would be pointless because the Trump campaign was not presenting facts and not alleging fraud. Judge Stephanos Bibas ruled that Giuliani himself told the district court that the Trump campaign "didn't plead guilty" and that this "is not a fraud case." In this case, neither "specific allegations" nor "proof" was found, according to the panel, and Trump's campaign "cannot win this case."

Giuliani and Ellis reacted to the appeals court decision by condemning Pennsylvania's "activist judicial machinery." Stephanos Bibas, one of the three appeal court judges, was appointed by Trump himself, while judges D. Brooks Smith and Michael Chagares were appointed by Republican President George W. Bush.

He made several incorrect statements about two rival firms, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, as part of Giuliani's allegations that voting machines had been rigged. These false allegations included that Smartmatic owned Dominion; that Dominion voting machines used Smartmatic devices; that Dominion voting machines transmitted vote results to Smartmatic at international locations; and that Dominion is a "conservative-left" company with links to antifa.

Both businesses had filed a lawsuit against Giuliani and Fox News. Dominion brought a defamation action against Giuliani on January 25, 2021, seeking $1.3 billion in fees and Fox News separately for $1.6 billion. Smartmatic filed a lawsuit on February 4, 2021, accusing Giuliani, Fox News, several Fox News anchors, and Sidney Powell of participating in a "disinformation campaign" against the organization, pledging $2.7 billion in damages. A New York state Supreme Court judge found in March 2022 that the Smartmatic lawsuit against Fox News and others would proceed, though he denied certain charges against Giuliani.

Fox News announced to Giuliani on September 10, 2021, that neither he nor his son Andrew will be allowed to watch their network for almost three months.

Giuliani spoke at a "Save America March" rally on the Ellipse attended by Trump supporters protesting the election's results on January 6, 2021. He reiterated conspiracy allegations that voting machines in the election were "crooked" and called for "trial by force." In a demonstration that culminated in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol police officer, and temporarily interrupted the counting of the Electoral College referendum, Trump supporters stormed the White House.

According to reports, Giuliani had been lobbying Republican lawmakers to ask them to postpone the electoral vote in order to ultimately hand over the presidency to Trump. Around 7:00 p.m. on January 6, Giuliani tried to contact Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Trump ally, and begged him to "try to calm it down" by reversing to multiple states and "raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow, ideally until the end of tomorrow. Giuliani mistakenly left the message on another senator's voicemail, which leaked the video to The Dispatch. Giuliani's attempts to slow certification in the aftermath of the protest were "treasonous," according to Rick Perlstein, a prominent historian of the American conservative political movement. "Sedition" means "Sedition." Both open and closed. He talked about the time when it was being opened up. He was encouraging and utilizing the violence. Perlstein tweeted on January 11, 2021, "this needs to be investigated."

Giuliani was chastised for his appearance at the rally and the Capitol riot that followed it. In a letter from the college community on Monday, former congressman and MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough called for the detention of Giuliani, President Trump, and Daniel Trump Jr. "One of the most outspoken voices fueling the outrage, mistrust, and violence that spilled out yesterday is a graduate of our College, Rudolph Giuliani," a former congressman and MSNBC anchor. His role as a leader of the campaign to delegitimize the election and disenfranchise millions of voters has been a condemnation of his alma mater's deepest values.

The New York State Bar Association, a lobbying group for the legal profession in New York state, announced on January 11 that it would launch an investigation into whether Giuliani should be barred from its membership rolls, noting that it has received hundreds of reports in recent months regarding Mr. Giuliani's remarks to the Trump supporter rally on January 6 and that after the results were determined, it would reconsider its valid results. Giuliani will not be barred from practicing law in New York if deactivating the group's membership rolls. Sen. Brad Hoylman and the lawyers' group Defending American Democracy have also filed a lawsuit against Giuliani with the First Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court, which has the authority to discipline and disbar licensed New York lawyers.

Attorney General Karl Racine said on January 11, 2021, that he and Donald Trump Jr. and Congressman Mo Brooks are investigating whether to prosecute Giuliani, together with Donald Trump Jr. and Representative Mo Brooks with inciting the violent attack.

Giuliani said incorrectly that the Lincoln Project was involved in the orchestration of the Capitol riot on January 29, 2021. Steve Schmidt threatened to sue Giuliani for defamation in reaction.

Representative Eric Swalwell filed a civil lawsuit against Giuliani and three others (Donald Trump Jr., and Representative Mo Brooks), alleging treason in the 2021 Capitol riot.

Giuliani testified on May 20, 2022, responding to a subpoena issued by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Giuliani's law license was suspended by a New York appellate court on June 24, 2021. Five justices found that there were "uncontroverted" evidence that Giuliani made "demonstrably misleading and misleading claims to lawyers, legislators, and the public" and that "these misleading claims were made to improperly promote (Giuliani's) argument that election results in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client." Giuliani's behavior "immediately threatens the public interest and prompts a temporary suspension from law enforcement," the court found. On July 7, 2021, his license was also revoked in Washington, D.C.

The Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the DC Bar in Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit against Giuliani on June 10, 2022. Giuliani's federal court filings regarding the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania contained baseless arguments in favor of Trump, according to the ethics indictments.

Giuliani appeared at ShopRite, a supermarket in Staten Island, on June 27, 2022, campaigning on behalf of his son Andrew, the Republican nominee for governor of New York. Daniel Gill, a 39-year-old supermarket employee, was arrested and charged with second-degree assault for reportedly slapping Giuliani's back in the store after Giuliani's appearance. "It's like a boulder struck me" or "like someone shot me," Giuliani said in a tweet; "it hurt tremendously." Giuliani continued that Gill's "very heavy shot" led him to stumble and "could've quickly knocked me to the ground and killed me by my head when attacking him." and called for Gill's dismissal and trial.

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