New development in federal criminal case against Rudy Giuliani
Why hasn’t Rudy Giuliani been arrested yet? It’s a good question, and one we get asked a lot. After all, the Feds raided his home and seized his communications a few months ago. The answer is pretty straightforward: the legal system moves slowly.
When we last heard anything from the Giuliani case, the courts had appointed a special master to sort Giuliani’s communications, so anything falling under attorney-client privilege could be removed, and the rest could be turned over to prosecutors.
Now Giuliani is raising a procedural dispute over his seized communications. Accordingly, the special master is giving Giuliani about a week to file all the paperwork. The Feds will then have a week to file a response. Giuliani will then have a few days to file any rebuttal.
Do we expect Rudy Giuliani to get anywhere with this? No. This is the same special master who was appointed to parse Michael Cohen’s seized communications, and Cohen has since praised her for being fair. So this desperation move by Rudy might buy him a few weeks, but it won’t reduce the evidence against him. And by all accounts Rudy is broke; dragging this out merely runs up his legal costs, meaning he can’t keep doing this for long.
There remains little doubt that Rudy Giuliani will end up being indicted and arrested on federal criminal charges. All of the reporting to date paints a picture of overwhelming evidence against him. This latest procedural development is a good example of why it hasn’t happened yet. It’s also a good example of why the fact that it hasn’t happened yet isn’t a sign that it won’t happen. These processes obviously take time.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report