By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -No charges will be brought in a criminal investigation into business dealings in Ukraine by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, the top U.S. prosecutor in Manhattan said in a court filing on Monday.
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.