Rudy Giuliani’s communications director quits to be replaced by crisis management expert

Christianné Allen joins ‘tech startup’ but is ‘proud of the accomplishments we achieved’ while working for embattled former Trump lawyer

Rudy Giuliani’s communications director has left her position after almost two years, as the former New York Mayor and former personal lawyer to Donald Trump faces numerous legal battles.

Christianné Allen started at Giuliani Communication LLC in December 2019 but said in a statement on Monday that while she was leaving her job, she was “proud of the accomplishments we achieved” and that she was instead joining a “rising tech startup”.

Mr Giuliani is facing investigations into his foreign lobbying, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the suspension of his licenses to practice law.

Ms Allen will be replaced by Todd Shapiro of Shapiro Associates. He’s been working with Mr Giuliani for six months.

“We are experts in crisis management. We have been doing this for over 25 years. The mayor is going to be fine,” Mr Shapiro told CNN. “I am out there to get the positive and the wonderful things that Giuliani is doing today.”

Mr Giuliani has been under investigation by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York going back to early 2019.

Investigators are looking into whether Mr Giuliani violated foreign lobbying laws by working for Ukrainian officials when he tried to remove Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador to Ukraine from August 2016 to May 2019.

Mr Trump removed Ms Yovanovitch from her post when Trump allies claimed she was trying to undermine the then-president’s efforts to put pressure on the Ukrainian administration to investigate President Joe Biden, then a possible rival in the 2020 election, and his son Hunter.

Failing to register as a foreign agent if you’re working for a foreign government or official is not permitted.

Federal agents searched Mr Giuliani’s New York apartment and office in April, taking 18 electronic devices. Prosecutors have also revealed that they looked into Mr Giuliani’s iCloud account in 2019. The documents are being independently reviewed to determine if they may be subject to attorney-client privilege.

Mr Giuliani, previously serving as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York himself, is also facing a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machine company seeking billions in damages, arguing that Trump allies damaged the company by making baseless claims of voter fraud.

More than 40 per cent of US voters use machines made by the company.

Mr Giuliani is instead claiming that the lawsuit from Dominion that was filed in January is meant to silence him, saying that it was “another act of intimidation by the hate-filled left-wing to wipe out and censor the exercise of free speech, as well as the ability of lawyers to defend their clients vigorously”.

Both Washington, DC and New York suspended Mr Giuliani’s law license because of his lies about the election.

Mr Giuliani recently joined Cameo, a site where people can pay others for a video greeting, offering video messages for $199 – possibly to deal with the increasing legal bills.