Disgraced former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who last week had his law license suspended for his lies about the 2020 presidential election, is now facing yet another Department of Justice investigation into whether he illegally lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of corrupt Turkish officials.
According to Bloomberg News, the investigation centers around whether Giuliani was acting on behalf of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when he pushed the Trump administration to drop money-laundering charges against gold trader Reza Zarrab, who was tied to a scheme by Turkish bank Halkbank to illegally funnel money to Iran.
As Bloomberg writes, Erdoğan had good reason to want the charges dropped because Zarrab implicated him in his guilty plea.
However, Giuliani may not face criminal charges as a result of the Turkey investigation, the report notes.
“The Turkey inquiry, which has not been previously reported, is not criminal, in contrast to the Ukraine investigation, which resulted in the Federal Bureau of Investigation seizing Giuliani’s electronic devices in April 28 raids on his Manhattan home and office,” Bloomberg reports. “Though both matters focus on whether Giuliani lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of foreign interests, the Justice Department usually takes a softer approach when it thinks failure to register wasn’t intentional.”
