Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani aims to block the feds from search warrant items

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Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, spoke in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nov. 7, 2020.

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Rudy Giuliani, who served as personal attorney for former President Donald Trump, now seeks to prevent prosecutors from seeing only three items in the more than 2,000 contents of some of the electronic devices seized from him as part of a criminal investigation, one announced the court filing on Tuesday.

Giuliani says those three items are protected by attorney-client privilege, which will prevent them from being handed over to federal prosecutors, according to Barbara Jones, the so-called special master who adjudicates such claims.

“I reserve a decision on those three matters,” Jones wrote in his appearance in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. “The remaining 2,223 items have already been released to the Government.”

The items contained seven of 16 devices seized under search warrants conducted at Giuliani’s apartment and office in Manhattan in April. Jones is reviewing the remaining nine devices, so Giuliani could have more privileged claims.

All items reviewed so far were made on or after January 1, 2018, according to Jones.

Jones wrote that he has assigned “additional documents for review” to Giuliani’s lawyers, and he expects to tell them on Friday what additional items they claim are privileged.

“It’s a tedious but very important process that we’re all going through, and we’re making every effort to follow Judge Jones’ timeline, ”Giuliani’s attorney Arthur Aidala told CNBC.

Giuliani is a former mayor of New York City. He also served as the top federal prosecutor in the same office that is now investigating him.

Investigators are known to be investigating Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, where he worked to dig up politically damaging material about Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Trump was impeachable in the House in 2019 on articles of abuse of power and obstruction in Congress in connection with his own efforts to force Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelinsky to announce an investigation into the Bidens.

Joe Biden, who at the time was the Democratic front-runner in the 2020 presidential race, defeated Trump last year.

Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello said the search warrants were related to allegations that Giuliani failed to register as a foreign agent, the Associated Press reported.

Simultaneously with their raid on Giuliani’s location, investigators also executed a search warrant on the Washington-area home of Victoria Toensing, a Republican lawyer and Giuliani’s colleague.

Toensing represented Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, the subject of an accusation in the US

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U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in May appointed Jones to review materials related to Giuliani, Toensing and Firtash for possible privilege claims before handing the items over to prosecutors.

Jones said in his filing Tuesday that prosecutors provided seized material from a device seized from Toensing.

“Mr. Firtash’s counsel will conduct an examination of the Seized Materials in connection with Ms. Toensing’s representation to Mr. Firtash,” Jones wrote.

Jones also said he will speak with Toensing’s attorneys to determine if they plan to review the remaining material on the device for privileged information.

In 2018, Jones was appointed special master to filter materials taken from Michael Cohen, who at the time was Trump’s personal attorney.

He found that some of those documents qualified for privilege from prosecutorial review.

Cohen later that year pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, to financial crimes, and to facilitating the payment of money to two women who say they had sex with Trump.

Before entering prison, Cohen testified before the House Oversight Committee that Trump was a racist and accused him of a range of misconduct.

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