New York attorney general Letitia James considered investigating Rudy Giuliani years ago over his efforts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine.
The Manhattan district attorney's office received emails last week revealing internal discussions at the attorney general's office in 2020 about the potential investigation, although the idea was quickly shot down, an agency official familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast.
A law enforcement memo dated Jan. 7, 2020 – nearly three weeks after then-president Donald Trump was impeached for his own role in the scheme – recommended the attorney general "open a civil investigation into whether Rudolph William Giuliani is unlawfully practicing law in violation of New York’s Judiciary and Executive Laws — as appears to be highly likely.”
The memo suggested using Executive Law 63(12), which is the same broad authority that James is using against Trump in her bank fraud lawsuit that's currently at trial.
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Investigators wanted to look into the Trump administration's Ukraine scandal, which involved Giuliani, acting as the president's personal lawyer, traveling overseas to find damaging information about Hunter Biden in an effort to hurt his father's presidential campaign – and some officials in the attorney general's office believed the former New York City mayor had engaged in “conspiracy to abuse government power for personal gain” and “obstruction of Congress and justice.”
“Expedited investigative action could compel Giuliani to give sworn testimony prior to a verdict in the U.S. Senate trial,” the memo stated. "The factual bases for investigating Giuliani’s practices as a New York attorney overlap almost completely with the articles of impeachment against Trump.”
While first deputy attorney general Jennifer Levy, the second-highest ranking lawyer in the office, found the proposal an "interesting idea," another high-ranking official – Travis Hill, then head of the Public Integrity Bureau – pushed back hard on the potential investigation.
“This is a discussion of whether the OAG’s jurisdiction to bring such actions includes investigations intended to determine whether actions of an attorney properly licensed in the State of New York are within the authorized bounds of legal practice," Hill wrote on Jan. 8, 2020.
Hill questioned a proposal to use Judiciary Law § 476-a against Giuliani, saying that provision was usually used against non-lawyers trying to practice law in the state, such as crooks posing as immigration attorneys, and the idea was scrapped.
“Additionally, to my knowledge, the OAG has never prosecuted a licensed attorney, either civilly or criminally, for the breadth of his/her practice,” Hill wrote. "Such prosecution, whether civil or criminal, would be unprecedented and contrary to the purpose of the statute.”
