Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a former lawyer of Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab, is joining the team of lawyers representing U.S. President Donald Trump in the special counsel's Russia investigation.
"Rudy is great. He has been my friend for a long time and wants to get this matter quickly resolved for the good of the country, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow quoted the president as saying.
Giuliani was one of three attorneys Sekulow said were being added to the president's legal team dealing with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Russia has denied meddling in the election. Trump has said there was no collusion and has called the Mueller probe a "witch hunt."
Giuliani had a storied career as a federal prosecutor before becoming mayor of New York in 1994. The Republican mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001, Giuliani was also the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan for much of the 1980s. He was also a top Department of Justice official in the Reagan administration. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president in 2008.
Since exiting the mayor's office, Giuliani has been in private practice, most recently at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig.
Last year, Giuliani joined former Bush administration attorney general Michael Mukasey in working to resolve the case of Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader with ties to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was accused of participating in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions. The case threatens to reopen a case that reached right into Erdoğan’s inner circle.
Giuliani had travelled overseas to see Erdoğan, the meeting was kept secret. However, he said in an affidavit that senior U.S. officials were open to a deal that would help his client while promoting the security interests of the United States.
Erdoğan's government had pressured the U.S. government to drop the case, and in early 2017, Giuliani met with Erdogan to discuss whether the case could be resolved outside of court.
Despite Giuliani's intervention, Zarrab later pleaded guilty and testified for U.S. prosecutors against a former Turkish bank official who was himself later convicted. Zarrab later said the failure of Giuliani's effort led him to cooperate with prosecutors.
Zarrab pleaded guilty and testified against Mehmet Hakan Atilla, deputy general manager at Turkey's state-controlled Halkbank, saying he paid over $60 million in bribes to Turkey's finance minister, Zafer Çağlayan, who is under indictment but not on trial because he is still in Turkey in 2012 to advance the scheme.
Zarrab also testified that he believed Erdoğan knew about the plot. The Turkish president personally ordered that two Turkish banks be allowed to participate in an oil-for-gold scheme that violated United States sanctions on Iran, according to testimony by Zarrab.
Atilla, deputy general manager at Turkey's state-controlled Halkbank, had been found guilty by a federal jury in Manhattan in January. On April 5, Erdoğan's spokesman said 'Turkey' strongly condemned a demand from U.S. prosecutors to sentence Atilla, convicted of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions, to about 20 years in prison.
"The Hakan Atilla case is a legal scandal. We strongly condemn and reject this decision, it is a grave injustice," spokesman İbrahim Kalın told a news conference.
