NBC News is reporting another complicated scandal Rudy Giuliani finds himself in.
According to the report, in 2017 former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey met with an Iranian group that was once considered a terrorist organization until 2012. Giuliani came along for the meeting with Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) and has been engaged with the group for years.
"For nearly a decade, the former law partners have pushed the agenda of the MEK, giving paid speeches and writing newspaper op-eds expressing support for a group linked to the deaths of six Americans in the 1970s," NBC News reported Thursday.
Despite the meeting taking place nearly three years ago, it was only recently that Mukasey filed for his registration as a foreign agent. Giuliani, however, still hasn't.
“This is the kind of scenario that very commonly leads them to launch an investigation,” said Washington lawyer Josh Rosenstein, who works on federal lobbying laws and compliance. If the two men were working together, he explained it's a huge problem for Giuliani.
Giuliani's Ukraine work is being investigated, and it may bring greater scrutiny to his other secret clients. Already his finances are being investigated in wake of the arrest of business associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
"Legal experts say Giuliani’s work on behalf of the MEK and its political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also raises questions about whether he may have run afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA," said NBC News. "The law requires American citizens to disclose to the Justice Department any lobbying or public relations work on behalf of a foreign entity, regardless of whether they’re paid for the representation."
Giuliani reportedly met with members of the former terrorist group at least once every year since 2014 to discuss multiple issues, including Iran's nuclear weapons program and terrorism in the region.
"During that period, he has appeared at MEK-related events in Poland, Albania, Paris and Washington. FARA experts say Giuliani’s speech in Washington in May 2018 and U.S.-based writings in support of the group are particularly problematic," NBC explained.
Defense lawyer Matthew Sanderson said that the Justice Department will likely try to “develop facts to determine whether these efforts to influence public opinion in the U.S. were at the request or direction of MEK, a foreign interest.”
Giuliani denied doing any kind of foreign lobbying or anything for which he should register as a foreign agent, he told NBC.