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What Giuliani didn’t mention in the letter was that he wrote it on behalf of the Freeh Group, a consulting firm started by former FBI director Louis Freeh, which paid the former mayor a retainer to work on the Romania project. In 2018, Giuliani declined to reveal the amount, and his letter is the only Romania-related work he did that is known to the public. Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu, a Romanian property mogul who was sentenced to seven years in prison in a real estate fraud case, had hired Freeh in 2016 to review the evidence against him. The Freeh Group found “numerous factual and legal deficiencies” in the legal case that led to his conviction. A spokesperson for the Romanian president told POLITICO that Iohannis never replied to the letter.
Popoviciu in 2015 had also hired Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, to help put an end to the fraud investigation against him. Hunter Biden had reportedly stopped working for Popoviciu by the time Giuliani got involved in 2018. Giuliani has severely criticized Hunter Biden for his ties to foreign companies, including in Ukraine and China.
Popoviciu and his business partners have owned Pizza Hut and KFC franchises and branches of foreign hotel chains in Romania. The controversy is centered around land that was bought for a bargain basement price in northern Bucharest that became a top-flight shopping mall, offices, and luxury car showrooms. The new U.S. embassy was also built on that land. Popoviciu, who at one point lived in New Jersey, was residing in London at the time of his arrest warrant in 2017, but soon surrendered and has fought his extradition back to Romania since.
When POLITICO called Popoviciu and texted him about Giuliani’s Romania work on Tuesday morning, he replied: “I don’t know anything about his interest in Romania. I met him there when he was invited by a private group for a speach [sic], but never kept a direct contact.”
Giuliani has not said much publicly about his work in Romania, except to tell The Guardian when asked whether his letter was related to Popoviciu’s case: “Overall situation not any one case. The letter speaks for itself. The rest you have to get from my client.” He also told POLITICO in 2018 that his letter “was based on a report I reviewed” by Freeh and that the Freeh Group was “paying my fee.”
Giuliani’s Romania activity has drawn the attention of federal investigators scrutinizing his foreign work. It means the probe of Giuliani has taken a wider lens than previously known. If Giuliani’s Romania work was solely to influence government officials there and did not target American audiences, then he would not have been required to disclose the work to the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment. Asked for comment for this story, a lawyer for Giuliani, Robert Costello, said in a text message, “No idea about that. We have no such information.” Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment. Freeh and a representative of his current firm, AlixPartners, also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
One focus of the probe into Giuliani reportedly involves his ties to billionaire Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash, who the U.S. government has charged with violating anti-corruption laws. Firtash has been in Vienna for years fighting extradition. The Giuliani probe is also reportedly focused on whether his efforts to oust former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was on Trump’s behalf or at the behest of Ukrainian officials who wanted her gone. Giuliani had planned a trip to Ukraine in 2019 that he later canceled where he was hoping to meet with the Ukrainian president-elect to push for inquiries into Hunter Biden’s work for a scandal-plagued Ukrainian energy company.
Ukraine and Romania are not the only countries outside the U.S. where Giuliani has found business. The former mayor was a partner at a law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, that had an office in Kazakhstan. Giuliani’s consulting firm also worked with a state-run energy firm in Qatar, according to The Wall Street Journal, and he signed a contract to train law enforcement for Bahrain’s Interior Ministry in 2019.
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