Federal investigators reportedly raided Rudy Giuliani's apartment and office and seized his electronic devices

• Federal investigators raided Rudy Giuliani's apartment in Manhattan on Wednesday, NYT reported.
• They also searched his office in NYC, and the home of his associate, Victoria Toensing.
• The raids were part of a federal criminal investigation into Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine.

Federal investigators raided former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's Manhattan apartment and office on Wednesday and seized his electronic devices, The New York Times reported.

Investigators executed the raids after obtaining search warrants, and they were part of a criminal investigation into Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, sources told The Times. The outlet reported that investigators had been trying to secure a search warrant against Giuliani for months but that former President Donald Trump's Justice Department quashed their efforts.

The investigation into Giuliani, who serves as Trump's personal lawyer, resumed in earnest last month, and the Justice Department lifted its objection to the warrant after Merrick Garland was confirmed as attorney general.

Prosecutors have been scrutinizing Giuliani's activities in Ukraine since at least 2019 and are examining if he broke foreign-lobbying laws while working as Trump's lawyer. He spearheaded a behind-the-scenes effort to influence the US's policy vis-a-vis Ukraine that resulted in Trump's first impeachment. And he worked with several Ukrainian figures to dig up dirt on the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election.

The Times reported that investigators on Wednesday also executed a search warrant at the Washington, DC, home of Giuliani's associate, Victoria Toensing. Toensing and her husband, Joseph diGenova, are close to Giuliani and Trump, and The Times said Toensing was in touch with Ukrainians who were involved in the effort to get dirt on the Bidens.

Two people familiar with the investigation told The Times that investigators were looking into Giuliani's role in the recall of former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie L. Yovanovitch, who was a foreign-service officer for 33 years before being abruptly removed from her post in spring 2019.

In October 2019, Yovanovitch appeared for a nine-hour closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill related to the first impeachment inquiry into Trump. In her opening statement, she said then-Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan told her she "had done nothing wrong" but there was a "concerted campaign" to oust her and the department had been "under pressure from the President to remove [her] since Summer of 2018."

Shortly before news of the investigation into Giuliani broke, two of his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested - also in October 2019 - on suspicion of trying to funnel foreign money into a pro-Trump super PAC and other entities to gain leverage in US political circles. Prosecutors also alleged Parnas and Fruman tried to influence US-Ukraine relations.

CNN reported that investigators from the Manhattan US attorney's office approached Kevin McCallion, a lawyer in New York, earlier in 2019 to ask about Giuliani's link to Parnas and Fruman.

Giuliani has acknowledged that he sought dirt on political adversaries, including President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, along with Yovanovitch, and had contact with the former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko. He has also been instrumental in amplifying the lie that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US presidential election - a talking point that was started by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The FBI's investigation into Giuliani includes a counterintelligence aspect that veteran prosecutors said suggested the FBI may see him as a national security threat. And last year, The Washington Post reported that US officials warned the White House that Russian intelligence services were using Giuliani to funnel disinformation to Trump.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act stipulates that American citizens notify the Justice Department of any contacts they have with foreign governments or officials, and if they interact with the US government or media at the direction of those officials.

Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing, and his lawyer, Robert Costello, told The Times that what the FBI "did today was legal thuggery."

"Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who was the associate attorney general, United States attorney, the mayor of New York City and the personal lawyer to the 45th president of the United States?" Costello said.