- The feds gained access to thousands of
Rudy Giuliani 's communications this week. - The FBI raided Giuliani's home and office last year and seized 18 electronic devices.
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday obtained access to thousands of communications from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as they investigate whether he violated foreign lobbying laws, The Washington Post reported.
The feds raided Giuliani's home and office last April and seized 18 of his electronic devices. A judge later appointed a "special master" to review documents and records seized in the raid and filter out materials that could be covered under attorney-client privilege.
The special master, the retired judge Barbara Jones, said in a progress report submitted Friday that one cellphone contained more than 25,000 communications dating back to the beginning of 2018. According to The Post, Giuliani said that 96 of those were protected by privilege or deemed "highly personal," and Jones agreed on 40 of those items.
The remaining 56 items were released to prosecutors after Giuliani's lawyers withdrew their privilege assertions on 19 of them and Jones determined that the other 37 were also not protected, The Post said.
The report went on to say that prosecutors also gained access to over 3,000 communications from December 2018 to the end of May 2019 from another set of Giuliani's devices.
Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello, told The Post that his client did not break the law: "There's no [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violation. Rudy Giuliani didn't do anything illegal or unlawful."
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