Alan Dershowitz slams FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's apartment as 'unconstitutional' and says he will represent Trump's embattled lawyer
Attorney Alan Dershowitz has called the FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's Manhattan apartment unconstitutional, and says he is willing to assist in Giuliani's defense.
Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and Constitutional scholar, spoke on Sunday in an interview with podcast host John Catsimatidis on the Cats Roundtable show, reacting to Wednesday's raid.
Agents seized more than 10 phones and computers from Giuliani's Upper East Side apartment and office, with warrants suggesting the probe relates to Giuliani's freelance 'corruption' investigations in Ukraine on behalf of Donald Trump.
'In banana republics, in Castro's Cuba, in many parts of the world when a candidate loses for president, they go after the candidate, they go after his lawyers, they go after his friends,' said Dershowitz.
Attorney Alan Dershowitz has called the FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's Manhattan apartment unconstitutional, and says he is willing to assist in Giuliani's defense
Agents seized more than 10 phones and computers from Giuliani's Upper East Side apartment and office on Wednesday. Giuliani is seen above in November
'That's happening in America now. They're going after Rudy Giuliani,' he said. ' An they're going after him in inappropriate ways. A search warrant on a lawyer?'
Giuliani is a former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York as well as New York City mayor, and served as Trump's personal attorney in his quest to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine.
'A search warrant on a lawyer or a doctor or a priest? You don't use search warrants,' he said, arguing that Giuliani likely had information on the seized devices protected by attorney-client privilege.
'You don't use search warrants when people have privileged information on their cell phones and in their computers. You use a subpoena. The difference between a subpoena and a search warrant is like night and day,' he said.
'They're taking everything from his cloud, from his computers, including privileged information. It's just not constitutional,' said Dershowitz.
Dershowitz said that Giuliani had called him on Saturday and asked for him to aid in his defense. 'I said sure I'll help out, I'm in favor of the Constitution,' Dershowitz said.
'Rudy and I have had our disagreements over the years about everything, but we completely agree about the Constitution,' Dershowitz said.
New York City Police officers investigate at the building former President Donald Trump's personal attorney and the former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani lives
Giuliani arrives at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in 2016
Dershowitz said that the raid on Giuliani's home gave him 'lots of legal arguments he could prevail on' by challenging the constitutionality of the search.
On Saturday, 76-year-old Giuliani was spotted meeting up with Maria Ryan - his rumored 56-year-old girlfriend and former alleged mistress - at a Manhattan cafe.
Giuliani, who was wearing a face mask, was seen arriving at a cafe close to his apartment on the Upper East Side where he was met by Ryan.
The pair arrived in separate cars but left the cafe together. Giuliani appeared to be accompanied by an unidentified younger woman as he left the cafe.
Ryan, who is believed to have three children, was spotted behind the wheel of the car as they left. Giuliani could be seen going through what appeared to files while sitting in the front seat.
Ryan, who stepped down as CEO of a New Hampshire hospital in December, has reportedly been dating Trump's personal lawyer since 2018.
Search warrants indicate that investigators are seeking to review Rudy Giuliani's phones and computers for communications with more than a dozen people, including a high-ranking prosecutor in Ukraine.
Rudy Giuliani was spotted leaving a cafe on the Upper East Side where he dined with his alleged girlfriend Dr Maria Ryan on Saturday and left with an unknown woman (above)
Dr Maria Ryan met Giuliani at the cafe after arriving there separately. The pair left in the same vehicle after emerging at different times
They also are searching for communications with any U.S. government official or employee relating to Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was ousted by the Trump administration in 2019, the warrant says.
Agents seized more than 10 cell phones and computers from Giuliani's Manhattan apartment and office in raids on Wednesday, according to his lawyer, Bob Costello, who read the search warrant to a Reuters reporter.
According to the warrant, investigators are looking for evidence that Giuliani acted as an unregistered foreign agent, a violation of lobbying laws.
Giuliani said in a statement following the raids that his "conduct as a lawyer and a citizen was absolutely legal and ethical."
A former federal prosecutor claimed on Sunday that Giuliani's loyalty could shift as he may have to reveal 'damning secrets' about Trump in order to 'save himself' after the FBI raided his home.
Renato Mariotti, who worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois for nearly 10 years, penned an op/ed in Politico where he made the claims about the former president's attorney.
He noted that Trump would be unlikely to testify on behalf of Giuliani, which could further lead to the attorney outing the former president to benefit himself 'especially since he knows Trump cannot pardon him any longer.'
'The only surefire way for Trump to avoid testimony in the trial of Giuliani would be to take the Fifth, but Trump has repeatedly noted that taking the Fifth makes you look guilty,' Mariotti noted, adding that the only other way to get out of testifying is to condemn Giuliani's actions and suggest he didn't know about it.
'That would make him worthless for Giuliani as a witness and force Giuliani to point the finger at Trump to save himself,' he continued.
Mariotti claims in his column that Giuliani's legal trouble could affect Trump since it reportedly centers around the attorney's efforts to lobby Trump on behalf of Ukrainian officials – the same ones who were also helping dig up dirt on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his family.
'At issue, as well, are Giuliani's efforts to persuade Trump to oust the ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, whose anti-corruption work was viewed hostilely by those same Ukrainian officials. If Giuliani's efforts to push Trump to fire Yovanovitch were done on behalf of Ukrainian officials, that could be the sort of foreign lobbying activity that he should have disclosed,' Mariotti wrote.
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