According to a new report from the Daily Beast, federal “investigators have homed in on Giuliani Security & Safety, a consulting firm that has done business with various governments and organizations around the world” as the federal criminal investigation of longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani continues to roll on. The Daily Beast adds that investigators “have asked questions about and examined documents related to” the Giuliani-led security firm, which originally got going in the early 2000s and has done business across the globe.
Other areas of Giuliani’s work that have been subjects of the federal investigation include his ties to Ukraine and Romania. He is suspected of potentially covertly lobbying for foreign interests in the United States, which is illegal — lobbyists who work domestically to spread a foreign agenda must register with federal authorities. Specifically, Giuliani may have been covertly ferrying the wishes of Ukrainian interests to then-President Donald Trump when advocating for the firing of Marie Yovanovitch from her job as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.
The Daily Beast notes that it’s “unclear exactly why federal investigators have been taking a look at Giuliani’s security and consulting business,” although investigators are clearly serious — not long ago, agents raided Giuliani’s apartment and office in Manhattan, seizing a slew of electronic devices. Notably, Trump himself has stayed mostly distant from Giuliani’s situation, leaving his former lawyer to largely fend for himself.
Interestingly, Giuliani’s work through his scrutinized security firm has included a contract with the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, a deal that “was reportedly the result of the local influence of the Ukrainian-Russian real estate developer Pavel Fuks, an ally of the town’s Moscow-friendly mayor,” as the Daily Beast explains. The stated goals of the partnership included the development of a “Kharkiv Office of Emergency Management” on par with something found in New York City.
Fuks was also involved in negotiations around the failed Trump Tower Moscow idea, and that developer eventually explicitly characterized Giuliani’s involvement in the Kharkiv project as that of a “lobbyist,” although Giuliani has insisted that Fuks was incorrect. Still, the project could be another example of potential covert foreign lobbying on Giuliani’s part.
