Rudy Giuliani, the personal lawyer of President Donald Trump, has suffered a major legal setback in a court case he had been pursuing in Ukraine since early 2019. On Thursday, a federal judge in Manhattan dismissed the claim Giuliani had brought against former Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, ruling that Giuliani had demonstrated “at most, only a thin pretext” for his case.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos is a severe blow to Giuliani, who has become more and more of a legal pariah for his ties to Trump and his involvement in Ukraine. The judge’s decision could not be any clearer: Giuliani’s case, the judge wrote, “was ill-conceived, fails to state a claim and is dismissed.” The ruling was the result of an extraordinary filing from Giuliani earlier this year, in which he sought a restraining order to prevent Firtash from engaging in certain activities related to Trump and Ukraine.
Giuliani had alleged that Firtash was engaged in activities hostile to the interests of the United States, the Trump administration, and the president’s political allies. He had accused Firtash of spreading malicious information about him and attempting to derail Giuliani’s investigations related to Ukraine.
The judge’s ruling also noted that Giuliani failed to establish that the activities he cited constituted a threat to him or to the United States government. Judge Ramos wrote that Giuliani’s filings lacked “plausible support for such allegations.” The court further noted that Giuliani had not provided the court with any evidence that Firtash’s conduct was related to hostile foreign interference implicated in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, despite Giuliani’s repeated assertions that the oligarch had played a role in “conspiring with Russia” to interfere in the election.
The judge’s ruling starkly demonstrates that Giuliani’s legal efforts on behalf of President Trump have come to naught. To be sure, Giuliani’s strategy had never been rooted in sound legal basis. Nevertheless, the judge’s ruling makes clear that Giuliani’s efforts to protect Trump through legal means will continue to fail, no matter how desperate the attorney may become. For now, Giuliani’s first big legal loss appears to be a blistering one.