On Thursday morning, after Mr. Comey shot back on his Twitter account, saying that the New York F.B.I. was “devoted to the rule of law and the truth,” Mr. Giuliani assailed Mr. Comey, his onetime colleague in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, as a “sensitive little baby.” By Thursday afternoon, he had tossed another bomb, calling for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “step in” on the Cohen case and put the people behind it “under investigation.”
In all of this, Mr. Giuliani was following the lead of Mr. Trump, who in both the Cohen and Russia matters has adopted a strategy of attacking agents, prosecutors and the larger institutions of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. While some former law-enforcement officials said that those attacks had eroded trust in the criminal-justice establishment, others said that the figures singled out by the president and his lawyer were deserving of their ire.
“Rudy is not anti-law enforcement, but he is upset, like me, at a small cadre of people who have lost their way,” said James K. Kallstrom, who once ran the New York office of the F.B.I. and has emerged more recently as a vigorous supporter of Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani. “We’ve had long talks about it and what we can do to rebuild the bureau.”
Though Mr. Kallstrom acknowledged that Mr. Giuliani, in his television appearances, could have opted “for a better choice of words,” he also said there was ample reason to be wary of some recent decisions by law-enforcement officers. He criticized, for instance, the way that F.B.I. agents, acting on a search warrant last year, broke into the home of Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager. Mr. Kallstrom also blasted the more recent raids on Mr. Cohen’s office, apartment and hotel room, saying that they may have violated the attorney-client privilege.
In an interview on Friday evening, Mr. Giuliani echoed those concerns, adding that while he maintained respect for Mr. Mueller, some of the prosecutors on the special counsel’s team had “ethical problems.” He also said that his recent criticisms were not at odds with his law-enforcement past.
”It’s all consistent with law and order, because some of these people aren’t acting appropriately,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I’ve never been in favor of out-of-control law and order. I’m not going after the whole F.B.I. I’m going after the people on this case.”
Still, it is not the normal course for a former top criminal-justice official to savage the institutions that gave birth to him. But the inquiries into Mr. Trump and his associates are so riven by questions of legal ethics and partisan politics that they seemed to have polarized and stirred up passions in law-enforcement circles.
Trying to take the middle course, Nancy Savage, the executive director of the Society of Former Special Agents of the F.B.I., said that Mr. Giuliani “has a long history of supporting the F.B.I. and of supporting law enforcement.” But Ms. Savage also noted, “There are numerous, serious investigations that are ongoing and they need to be respected moving forward.”
Tom O’Connor, the president of a similar group, the F.B.I. Agents Association, said of Mr. Giuliani, “It is disappointing when former officials who have historically supported F.B.I. special agents and the investigative process now demean agents for performing our jobs.”
A former United States attorney in Manhattan, John S. Martin Jr., had an even blunter view of Mr. Giuliani, saying that he had more or less betrayed his erstwhile colleagues.
“He’s dancing to Trump’s tune,” said Mr. Martin, who has been critical of Mr. Giuliani in the past. “He’s playing the political game. He’s saying what Trump wants him to say. He turned his back on law enforcement to make Trump happy.”
