Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed potential witnesses in what may be a broad investigation into Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s consulting businesses and other sources of income, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The subpoenas, which were issued to several people in Giuliani’s inner circle, indicate that prosecutors are looking into possible money laundering, obstruction of justice, and campaign-finance violations. It is not yet clear if those charges are directly related to Giuliani’s businesses and associates. However, one concern of the investigation is that Giuliani may have acted as an unregistered foreign agent or concealed lobbying work he did on behalf foreign nationals. Giuliani has denied lobbying for a foreign government.
Giuliani told the Journal on Sunday that he has always referred his foreign clients to registered lobbyists when they’ve asked for help navigating the Trump administration.
“All they have to do is come and ask me,” he said of federal investigators. “There’s obviously a concerted effort to spread as many lies about me as possible, to destroy my reputation so that I’m not credible when I continue to reveal all of the massive evidence of criminality by the Bidens.”
The former New York City mayor has served as President Trump’s personal counsel and played a major role in trying to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump and his allies allege Joe Biden and his son Hunter were engaged in a conflict of interest related to Hunter’s business holdings in Ukraine.
Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who helped connect the former New York mayor to Ukrainian officials during Giuliani’s search for dirt on the Bidens, were indicted in October on campaign-finance violations. Parnas and Fruman are accused of donating to various Trump campaign outfits “for the purpose of gaining influence with politicians so as to advance their own personal financial interests and the political interests of Ukrainian government officials,” according to the indictment.
Parnas said in a Monday court filing that he will assert his Fifth Amendment rights in connection with campaign-finance probes when he testifies in a December 13 hearing, according to CNN.