'That's not legally sound': Legal analyst flattens Rudy Giuliani's claim lower felonies shouldn't result in FBI raids
Rudy Giuliani is grasping at straws as his own comments continue to make his legal situation more complicated. The latest tenuous defense from former President Donald Trump's lawyer is that if someone is accused of a lower-level felony then they shouldn't be raided by the FBI.
"I don't know why they're searching my house. I have no idea what they, what they allege I supposedly did, acted as an agent for some Ukrainian? It's just totally untrue," Giuliani said on his radio show. "I don't know what they base it on. Either their own supposition or some liar? But, I can prove that I wasn't. I've offered to come there and prove it."
A Bloomberg piece reported that the last part of that claim wasn't entirely accurate. Giuliani told investigators that he'd cooperate with their investigation, but only if they gave him the topics and questions ahead of time. Investigators refused.
He continued ranting about the raid on his home, complaining that it's the FBI who should be penalized for doing that.
"Instead, they wanted to break into my house and, worse of all, break into my law office, for which they should be really penalized," Giuliani said on his show. "I mean, the thing should be suppressed. You should not be allowed to break into a lawyer's office on a charge of one alleged failure to file as a foreign agent."
After listening to several of Giuliani's shows, MSNBC host Ari Melber said that he enjoyed that this latest take was more of a legal argument. On Monday, he and former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained that Giuliani using phrases that were reminicent of former President Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook" line. He also referenced former crime boss Whitey Bulger, who turned into an informant for the FBI.
"That's not legally sound," explained former federal prosecutor Dana Perry. "The prosecutor says as long as they have probable cause for a federal offense and can get a judge to sign off on it, in this case as well to get senior DOJ officials to sign off on it, they can get a search warrant. It doesn't matter if it is for a federal offense or premeditated murder. In point of fact, though, as a practical matter, it may be the case that for a simple technical paperwork violation, they would not go to these lengths. But he's wrong as a matter of law."
She explained that Giuliani may have other legal defenses like if there was no probable cause or whether an informant testified improperly.
"Those may all be legal defenses, but, yes, some of the defenses we have seen, the line prosecutors are jealous or he's being framed or the what-aboutism with Hunter Biden, you know, neither of these -- I don't know about you, are, but he doesn't seem to be a student of history or the law because those are of course not real legal defenses," she said.
Melber agreed, saying that it may just be that Giuliani is ranting as the subject of a probe and not as a lawyer.
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