FBI agents who raided Rudy Giuliani’s home and office earlier this week seized more than 10 computers and phones seeking communications with a dozen others about driving Marie Yovanovitch from her job as America’s ambassador to Ukraine, Reuters reported Saturday.
The individuals included former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, according to the affidavit supporting the raid, Reuters noted. Shokin was upset about anti-corruption measures being pushed in his country by Yovanovitch. He was ousted from his post after then-Vice President Joe Biden accused him in 2015 of being corrupt.
In spring 2019, then-President Donald Trump ordered Yovanovitch’s firing.
Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, confirmed Friday that Yovanovitch’s name was among about eight others referenced in a search warrant against his client.
Investigators are seeking evidence that Giuliani acted as a foreign agent, but failed to register as one, which is a violation of lobbying laws, according to the warrant against him, NBC reported. The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires the disclosure of certain political activities supporting foreign interests.
In his infamous phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky the summer of 2019, Trump told him that Yovanovitch was “bad news” and that “she was going to go through some things.” Trump was also captured on a 2018 video angrily telling associates to “take her out” and “get rid of her.” Giuliani’s communications could shed light on Trump’s drive to boot the ambassador.
The Zelensky phone call led to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. When Zelensky expressed his nation’s gratitude for U.S. military aid in the call, Trump responded by telling him to “do us a favor though” and dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Trump at the time was holding back aid and missiles Congress had approved for Ukraine.
Yovanovitch, a career diplomat, was a key witness at the impeachment hearings. She said she believed she was forced out of office because she was a corruption fighter. The Republican-dominated Senate voted not to convict.
In the Giuliani raids Wednesday, investigators were also seeking his communications with former Ukrainian prosecutors Yuriy Lutsenko and Kostiantyn Kulyk, and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney at the time, pursued contracts with Ukrainian officials in 2019 worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while simultaneously seeking political dirt on Biden for Trump. He told HuffPost it wasn’t a conflict of interest because he “got paid zero.”
Giuliani said in a statement following the raids this week that his “conduct as a lawyer and a citizen was absolutely legal and ethical.”