The feds executed a surprise raid on Rudy Giuliani's house
It's been a blessedly quiet few months when it comes to former New York City mayor, rabid fascism-enabler, and fartist Rudy Giuliani. Gone are the days of deranged courtroom appearances arguing some grand conspiracy, the threads of which only he could see. His graveyard teeth no longer haunt us from the Fox News studios, where he would gnash and rant about collusion, and Russia, and whatever else happened to pop into his rheumy skull that morning. He has, instead, presumably crawled back under his favorite bridge and largely removed himself from the popular zeitgeist. Thank god.
At least, until Wednesday, when Rudy's name clawed its way back into the headlines, thanks to a surprise visit from federal investigators — first reported by The New York Times — who executed a search warrant at his Manhattan apartment, reportedly leaving with a tranch of electronic devices from his home. According to the Times, the search comes as part of an ongoing investigation into Giuliani's nebulous, and potentially criminal, work to smear then-candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, by digging up dirt about the latter's role at a Ukrainian energy company. At the same time, investigators are probing whether Giuliani's effort on behalf of former President Donald Trump dovetailed with his own personal dealings with Ukranian officials, potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on their own.
Wednesday's unexpected raid is likely the result of the newly installed leadership at the Justice Department, with Attorney General Merrick Garland's confirmation having taken place just last month. According to the Times, the Giuliani warrant has long been in the works at the DOJ, but had been stymied by Trump-aligned officials wary of investigating one of the president's closest allies and thus threw sand into the gears of the ongoing case. With Garland's confirmation, however, those bureaucratic objections were swept away, and investigators from the FBI and U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan were able to proceed.
Since Trump's ouster from office, Giuliani has spent the past few months largely pandering to various ultra-right wing outlets and being slapped with billion-dollar lawsuits over his role pushing a series of entirely made-up election conspiracy theories in service of his former boss.
While details of what, exactly, investigators found in Giuliani's apartment, and what they were looking for specifically in the first place, remain private, Wednesday's raid is a helpful reminder that months of silence from one of the former president's most unmoored enthusiasts doesn't mean Giuliani has gone away entirely. At least, not yet.
