Trump, the Justice Department reportedly blocked prosecutors' interest in Rudy Giuliani. Things are far different now.

April 28, 2021, :06 PM CDT
By Steve Benen
It was four months ago when NBC News and The Rachel Maddow Show first reported that federal prosecutors in New York had been in communication with Justice Department officials in D.C. about trying to obtain Rudy Giuliani's electronic communications.

There wasn't much in the way of public revelations in the weeks that followed, but the silence didn't last: The New York Times reported in early February that in the final months of Donald Trump's term, senior officials in Bill Barr's Justice Department "sought to block" federal prosecutors' efforts in the case, including "delaying a search warrant" for some of Giuliani's electronic records.

Of course, Barr is no longer attorney general, and there are fewer Republican appointees at Main Justice in a position to run interference for the troubled former mayor. It's against this backdrop that the New York Times reports today:

Federal investigators in Manhattan executed a search warrant on Wednesday at the Upper East Side apartment of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who became President Donald J. Trump's personal lawyer, stepping up a criminal investigation into Mr. Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, three people with knowledge of the matter said. One of the people said the investigators had seized Mr. Giuliani's electronic devices.

The Times' report, which has been confirmed by NBC News, added how "extraordinary" it is see federal prosecutors execute a search warrant against a former president's lawyer.