NEW YORK -- Prosecutors who orchestrated the seizure of electronic devices from Rudy Giuliani's home and office have proposed that the same former federal judge who screened records belonging to Michael Cohen -- another lawyer who represented former President Donald Trump -- should be tapped to oversee privilege review for the former New York mayor.
The retired judge, Barbara Jones, should be appointed to handle the sensitive matter "because her background and the resources available to her at her law firm will allow her to complete a privilege review in a fair and efficient manner," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebekah Donaleski, Aline Flodr and Nicolas Roos wrote in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge J. Paul Oetken that was filed to the court docket Thursday night.
Jones is a partner at Bracewell LLP, which was once known as Bracewell & Giuliani because Giuliani held a partnership role there. He left the firm in 2016, months before Jones joined, and therefore her appointment as a filter review overseer, known as a special master, would not pose a conflict, the prosecutors said.
Oetken recently agreed to appoint a special master and asked prosecutors to propose candidates for the job by the end of this week.
Lawyers for Giuliani and Victoria Toensing, a Washington, D.C.-area lawyer whose phone was recovered the same day as Giuliani's as part of the investigation, have agreed to Jones handling the review, according to the U.S. attorney's letter.
"Both the mayor and I know Judge Jones and we both have total confidence that she will do her job in a thorough, fair and professional way," said Giuliani's lawyer, Robert Costello. "We look forward to working with her."
Michael Bowe, a lawyer for Toensing, declined to comment.
Oetken must approve Jones before the process, which could take months, can begin.
It is unclear what if any communications with or about Trump were recovered on Giuliani's devices and on his iCloud account storage, the contents of which were obtained discreetly from Apple in a 2019 warrant by the same New York-based investigators.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to charges including tax evasion and lying to Congress, while Giuliani, in an unrelated matter, remains of interest over whether his dealings in Ukraine during Trump's term in office violated federal law. Authorities believe Giuliani may have skirted foreign agent registration requirements regarding his dealings overseas but he has not been charged with any crime.
Giuliani, who once headed the Justice Department branch now investigating him, adamantly denies any wrongdoing. Toensing also has said she was wrongly targeted.
Jones was appointed in 2018 by the judge overseeing Cohen's case to review documents to determine whether any were protected by attorney-client privilege.
Privilege review is a common occurrence but is more commonly done in-house by a team within a prosecutor's office that is not part of the investigation.