The smart reason SDNY didn’t arrest Rudy Giuliani before he ran off to Ukraine

| 7:07 pm EST December 5, 2019
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Rudy Giuliani is currently in Ukraine, blatantly meeting with his own criminal co-conspirators, and ostensibly trying to manufacture some kind of evidence of his innocence. This has led to a number of questions from observers. How could the SDNY let him leave the country? Why are they letting him blatantly collude with his co-conspirators? The answer is actually pretty straightforward.

SDNY is surely watching Rudy Giuliani closely enough to have known that he was planning to leave the country. After all, they knew Rudy’s guys Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were trying to leave the country. They could have arrested Rudy at the airport. But why stop him now, when they can sit back and let him go overseas and further incriminate himself? Rudy is over there unwittingly connecting the dots among his own henchmen. He’s also likely trying to illegally tamper with the criminal case against him – which will make for a far stronger and more compelling criminal case against him.

This is just how things work. Back when Robert Mueller arrested Paul Manafort, he didn’t object to Manafort being let out on bail. Mueller than promptly caught Manafort trying to conspire with a Russian spy to tamper with witnesses. This resulted in additional charges against Manafort and ultimately a longer prison sentence. It also made for the kind of slam-dunk case against Manafort that helped make Donald Trump afraid to try pardoning him.

Now the SDNY is doing roughly the same thing to Rudy Giuliani. Prosecutors already have a slam dunk case against him. But by giving him this much rope, they’re ensuring that they’ll have a far stronger case against him. Rudy will come home, because he’s convinced himself that he’s somehow innocent, and he therefore thinks he can beat the rap. His arrest will come soon enough. Prosecutors are being smart by timing it for the biggest strategic bang.