It’s been more than eight months since federal investigators raided the Manhattan apartment of Rudy Giuliani, and they’re still reviewing the evidence that was collected. Which, when you consider that there were more than 2,200 documents contained within the electronic devices that were confiscated, makes sense. What seems slightly more baffling—at least as baffling as anything related to Rudy can be—is that the former Mayor of New York City and personal lawyer to Donald Trump seems to have concluded that there are a few items on those devices that he’d rather the authorities didn’t, and is now attempting to block the feds from accessing them.
As CNBC reports, a court filing that was made public on Tuesday showed that Rudy was maintaining that of the thousands of documents on those devices, there were three in particular—just three—that were protected by attorney-client privilege.
“I am reserving decision on those three items,” Barbara Jones, the “special master” whose job it is to review such claims, wrote in her filing—adding that, “The remaining 2,223 items have been released to the government.” According to CNBC, Jones had flagged some other documents as needing to be reviewed by Team Giuliani before passing those on and expected to hear back from his team by the end of this week.
The role is a kind of déjà vu for Jones, who was also named special master in the case against Michael Cohen. Her job is to essentially flag any items that might be considered privileged before passing them on for prosecutorial review.
“It’s a tedious but very important process that we’re all going through, and we are making every effort to adhere to Judge Jones’ timeline,” Arthur Aidala, Giuliani’s lawyer, told CNBC.
(Via CNBC)