Federal prosecutors said Monday they have declined to file criminal charges against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani in connection with a foreign lobbying case involving Ukrainian associates.
The notification was part of a letter sent to a New York federal court asking to terminate the special master appointed to review documents and electronic devices seized when the FBI searched his home and office in April 2021.
“The government writes to notify the court that the grand jury investigation that led to the issuance of the above-referenced warrants have concluded and that based on information currently available to the government, criminal charges are not forthcoming,” prosecutors wrote.
Mr. Giuliani, who also served as the personal attorney for former President Trump, had been under investigation by New York federal prosecutors for nearly two years.
At the time prosecutors said a grand jury investigation led to the warrants that resulted in the search and seizure of Mr. Giuliani’s materials and devices. But on Monday they said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue criminal charges.
“In my business, we would call that total victory,” Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, told the Associated Press. “We appreciate what the U.S. attorney’s [office] had done. We only wish they had done it a lot sooner.”
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Mr. Giuliani had maintained his innocence throughout the investigation.
Investigators were looking into whether Mr. Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of two Ukrainian officials who helped him hunt for dirt on President Biden, who at that time was expected to be Democratic presidential nominee.
Prosecutors were probing whether those dealings with the Ukrainian figures in 2019 required him to register as a foreign agent.
Investigators were reportedly focused on Mr. Giuliani’s ties to Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash and Yuriy Lutsenko, the country’s top prosecutor, according to media reports.
Mr. Lutsenko traveled to New York in 2019 and met with Mr. Giuliani for hours to provide information that the former mayor hoped would sink Mr. Biden’s campaign, according to a report in The New York Times.
Although Mr. Giuliani can breathe a sigh of relief in New York, he remains a target of prosecutors in Georgia for his role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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