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Federal prosecutors have been examining actions by Giuliani, the
former New York City mayor, including whether he violated U.S.
lobbying laws by serving as an unregistered foreign agent while
working for then-U.S. President Trump.
Federal agents in April 2021 searched Giuliani's Manhattan
apartment and office, seizing cellphones and computers as part
of an investigation into Giuliani's effort to dig up dirt on
then-Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden ahead of the
2020 election.
In a sign that the investigation was winding down, FBI agents
returned the seized electronic devices to Giuliani, his lawyer
said in August. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing.
"The grand jury investigation that led to the issuance of the
above-referenced warrants has concluded," Damian Williams, the
U.S. attorney in Manhattan, wrote in a court filing on Monday.
"Based on information currently available to the government,
criminal charges are not forthcoming."
"We have said for the past three years that Mayor Giuliani did
nothing wrong and today the SDNY (Southern District of New York)
said we were right," Giuliani's lawyer Robert Costello said in a
statement.
According to a search warrant, U.S. investigators had sought to
review Giuliani's communications with more than a dozen people,
including a high-ranking prosecutor in Ukraine and that
country's former president Petro Poroshenko.
They were also were searching for communications with any U.S.
government official or employee relating to Marie Yovanovitch,
the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was fired by Trump in 2019
after being targeted for criticism by Giuliani.
Williams also asked U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken to terminate
the appointment of retired federal judge Barbara Jones as an
independent arbiter, called a "special master," to review
Giuliani's communications to make sure investigators did not see
information protected by attorney-client confidentiality.
Giuliani's effort to dig up dirt on Biden focused in part on his
son Hunter Biden, who had been a member of the board of
Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma. The Bidens have denied
any wrongdoing.
Giuliani, 78, also faces a state-level criminal investigation in
Georgia over efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his
2020 election loss to Biden. Giuliani in 2020 urged the state's
lawmakers not to certify Biden's victory in Georgia. In August,
Giuliani testified before a Fulton County grand jury after a
judge ordered him to comply with a subpoena.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Stempel in New York;
Editing by Leslie Adler and Bradley Perrett)
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