DershowitzGiuliani
© Mario Tama/Getty Images/Chris Kleponis/Polaris/Bloomberg/KJNAttorneys: Alan Dershowitz • Rudy Giuliani
Attorney Alan Dershowitz on Sunday explained why he agreed to help Rudy Giuliani as the former mayor is investigated over his Ukraine dealings — slamming the US as a "banana republic" after the FBI raided Giuliani's Manhattan home.

Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who served on President Donald Trump's impeachment legal team, said it was "inappropriate" for the federal agents to execute a search warrant at Giuliani's Upper East Side apartment last week.

Dershowitz told host John Catsimatidis on the Cats Roundtable podcast Sunday:
"In banana republics, in Castro's Cuba, in many parts of the world when a candidate loses for president, they go after the candidate, they go after his lawyers, they go after his friends. That's happening in America now. They're going after Rudy Giuliani."
He noted that Giuliani was the US attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980s.

Dershowitz argued that a subpoena would have been more appropriate, given that Giuliani might keep privileged information from his own clients at his home.
"A search warrant on a lawyer or a doctor or a priest? You don't use search warrants. You don't use search warrants when people have privileged information on their cellphones and in their computers. You use a subpoena. The difference between a subpoena and a search warrant is like night and day ... It's just not constitutional."
Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into whether Giuliani illegally lobbied for Trump on behalf of officials and oligarchs in Ukraine.

Dershowitz said he believes Giuliani has a strong case to challenge federal prosecutors if they accessed his iCloud account in early 2019 when he was the president's lawyer — a claim that Giuliani made last week, without providing further details.
"They gave Rudy Giuliani lots of legal arguments that he can prevail on. Apparently, they went after the [iCloud] and other material and information without telling him. That's just not the way the government is supposed to treat its citizens."
Dershowitz said Giuliani called him Saturday to ask if he'd represent him due to his constitutional expertise:
"Rudy and I have had our disagreements over the years about everything, but we completely agree about the Constitution."