Judge appoints ‘special master’ to examine contents of Rudy Giuliani’s seized phones and computers
US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC
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A judge has appointed a “special master” to examine the contents of Rudy Giuliani’s seized phones and computers.
Federal judge Paul Oetken agreed to a request by investigators to “ensure the perception of fairness” in the probe into Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
The former mayor of New York has been under investigation by the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York since 2019.
Mr Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office were raided by the FBI with a warrant on 28 April, and 18 electronic devices were removed.
Prosecutors are looking into whether Mr Giuliani broke foreign lobbying laws on behalf of Ukrainian officials.
Mr Giuliani has not been charged with any crime and has denied all wrongdoing and claimed the investigation itself is unconstitutional.
He has claimed that any activity he carried out in Ukraine was done in his role as a lawyer for the one-term president.
And he has said that he "never represented a Ukrainian national or official before the United States government."
The job of the special master is to make sure that investigators do not get access to any material that is protected by attorney-client privilege, which they are not entitled to see.
The judge told prosecutors and Mr Giuliani’s legal team that they had until 4 June to submit candidates to become the special master.
He also rejected attempts by Mr Giuliani to force prosecutors to divulge more information about why they seized the electronic devices.
“The search warrants at issue here were based on judicial findings of probable cause — supported by detailed affidavits — to believe that evidence of violations of specified federal offences would be found at the locations to be searched. There is no legal requirement for the Government to proceed by subpoena, nor is there any basis for the subject of an investigation to require it to do so,” the judge said in his written order.
The judge also denied Mr Giuliani’s request to see the results of the investigation’s team 2019 search of his iCloud account.
