That picture illustrates just how far Rudy has fallen. It's sad, in a way.
2
“Everything Trump Touches Dies.” Not just a mere observation, but, in truth, a prophecy.
4
Wreathed in infamy, more likely
6
Well, it’s amazing what you see when you’re retired and it’s raining all day. So, I watched the impeachment session or whatever you want to call it. I was embarrassed at the decorum; ashamed at the statements; and just mad at the House for wasting time on this fools journey of impeachment. It’s obvious that the Democrats case is weak. If this was a court trial, we would see the judge dismiss the charges. You need proof for a conviction!. There is no proof, just second hand statements.
Isn’t it time for Congress to get back to work? We have important projects for the continued growth of our economy. We need such projects as USMCA and Infrastructure addressed. Whether you like our President or not, make your point in the ballot box, not on our time, with our money, on a fools errand! Those Members must know that they will be judged based on what they have accomplished. If all they can point to is chaos, they might as well pack their bags now!
1
The money is coming from somewhere else then.....For shark lawyers like Giulliani, nothing, nothing, is for free...
2
NYC sure can crank these guys out, like a great factory of unethical.
Trump thinks Giuliani and his pals Lev and Igor can do a better job than our own CIA or FBI.
Does anyone agree?
1
Truly evil...Rudy what happened to your conscience
4
This is a complete supposition that Giuliani 'lead' Trump to commit impeachable offenses.
Trump directed Giuliani. It is Trump who is completely responsible.
6
I have said that Trump is only the symptom of the disease, but have now come to believe that the rot is far more pervasive than I thought. Impeachment of Trump is like trying to cut the toenail of a dragon. It's loss wouldn't hurt it a bit. Giuliani, now bringing him down might get to a blood vessel, not a major one, but a painful one.
Why hasn't Zelensky come out and criticize Putin for trying to pin the DNC hack on them?
It is possible Ukraine will be dealing with a Democratic President in 2021. They should be hedging themselves for that possibility.
The scary thing about all of this is ( Republicans are you listening?) if Trump gets away with all of this then if he doesn’t like what you say he can investigate you if he can investigate the former VP.
Now Edward Snowden would say that all presidents had that power. Maybe, but Snowden alerted many people to Big Brother. Trump has 63 million supporters behind him and the DOJ. They are all IN LEAGUE with Big Brother. That’s a different thing. People in love with a dictator.
3
Say what u will about Giuliani, but I think he deserves more respect and appreciation than he is currently given. On one hand, he is loyal. I can never fault loyalty. Loyalty is one of the purest form of honor, and Giuliani has that. Two, he was a rock during 9/11. He and Bloomberg both held that city together in a time when it took a man of extreme principle, courage and leadership to do so. It’s easy for people to make fun of people when they have to make tough decisions. But it is spineless to join a mob, and in Giuliani and Bloomberg’s case they held a city on the brink of collapse together and united with a pathos appeal that someone like mayor Pete could never execute. He also stood up to crime bosses who wanted his head and were leaving bodies on the streets. People can criticize both Giuliani and Bloomberg now, rather comfortably from the safe confines of their non violent block where they can claim they speak for races freely and without worrying about stray bullets hitting them, thanks to those 2 men. You may not like some of the actions he’s taken on account of his loyalty, but he does not deserve our derision, nor should we forget those lives they honored with their rock solid presence. Don’t forget about the past or you will pervert the future. Don’t spit on men who were honorAble because it feels good to be angry.Both Bloomberg and Giuliani channeled the publics anger to promote good. People should look at that as an example not desecrate it. Show some respect
1
As we age, we become more of who we are. Giulliani demonstrates that daily. The America's Mayor? That was the aberration.
14
What astonishes me is how thoroughly second rate these people are. And they are running the country.
26
I get completely disgusted when I see public corruption, too, Rudy. And boy, do we have a boatload of it in this Administration. Rudy was acting at the direction of this dishonest President to dirty-up Biden. He was his Fixer and Shambassador. He is nowhere near ethical, much less “super-ethical.”
He is no American hero, and despite his pathetic private-eye attempts, is no Columbo either. And before this is over, he should be exposed for his nefarious acts.
It would be poetic justice if the SDNY brings him to justice.
17
If this ever ends, I hope there will be a reckoning regarding how one behaves when elected to govern.
The selfishness, the mendacity, the coarseness- I could go on...
All this should/must be put aside.
7
Rudolph W Giuliani
It is not a big surprise
Whenever you start talking
All I ever hear is lies
When you are on the talk shows
You think you are pretty bold
Telling these lies, we know so
Rudy, it’s getting old
Then one cold December morn
Congress came to ask
Rudy, we want to dump Trump
Will you help us with the task?
Now, will the people love him
We would like to shout ‘Whoopee!’
Rudolph W Giuliani
Will you turn to honesty?
3
If the Greek tragedians are right, hubris invites the wrath of the gods. Perhaps Trump and Giuliani will prove them wrong, or at least that they are the exceptions which prove the rule.
5
Rudy secretly envied The Wiseguys he put away and decided to play one. Rudy's best portrayal of a Wiseguy is falling flat. Rudy has brought us to the point we have only been two other times in our history. Rudy's 250000 a month expenses is being paid by somebody.There is sucker born everyday and just think how he has served his client Trump? With a lawyer like Rudy who needs enemies?
7
Trump always needs a stooge around him and Rudy fits the bill. Micheal Cohen is doing time for being Trump's bagman. When Rudy has outworn his usefulness he goes under the bus also. In days gone by Rudy would have been called an ambulance chaser.
7
If House rules forbid accusing another member of lying, and the Democrats are obviously recognizing this rule, why are the Republicans continuously calling the Democrats liars and accusing them of abusing power?
5
So, is this a movie script or not?
Rudy Giuliani became famous as the great prosecutor of Organized crime, especially the Mafia. During his time as the top national crime investigator, Giuliani has had personal knowledge "files" on thousands of Americans, both criminal and non-criminal. In short, Giuliani knows a lot about many people, even if not bad at least compromising. It is also a known fact that the Mafia, the main focus Rudy's prosecution, is embedded in the construction industry.
Mr.Trump as a builder/developer was also embedded in the same industry and in that position had much unavoidable dealings with the mafia. It should come as no surprise therefore that Rudy, with so much knowledge of skeletons in so many closets, can have his way with our president.
9
I read Mr. Oxford's description of him as still himself but even more so, and I couldn't help wondering, is that supposed to be a compliment? That would mean he was only half-corrupt as a prosecutor, but now his cup runneth over.
1
Is it true that the money Guiliani spent in his failed presidential run so large enough that his legal work for Trump one, will always be short and two, was a debt collection dubbed " pro bono"?
Rudy thinks he's a hero? He's every bit as delusional as Trump. Perhaps they can share a cell when this is over.
18
Really great extensive article of Rudy’s dealings and life. Did her really need to be involved in criminal activity at this point in his life!?
What a shame!
7
How Giuliani Led Trump? This headline absolves Trump and makes it sound like he got duped! The headline should be: How Trump led Giuliani all the way to impeachment.
7
Scandal riven even in 2000, creepy Giuliani had to reinvent himself when he lost the 2000 NY senate race to Hillary Clinton.
And look what all he keeps coming up with in order to make money and remain relevant in the public eye as an old man.
7
So... this begins the narrative to blame everything on the lunatic Giuliani I guess.... giving Trump an escape hatch.
Stop please. Guiliani does not take a dump without instruction from about his only client in the land (Trump). Of course Trump is a master at the wink wink nod nod to get people to do his bidding without leaving an explicit trail... but that changes nothing... becuase Trumps modis operandi is well known and understood today (and by many before he even took office).
8
He is against public corruption. Bernard Kerik.
3
If it wasn't Giuliani it would be someone else. Trump runs this show...to believe otherwise is to be niave to the point of mindless.
7
Rudy's detachment from reality was on display shortly after Trump took office. He went on Hannity's show and revealed a client confidence, bragging that Trump wanted him to word a "Muslim Ban" in such a way as to not be illegal.
3
If after super-Tuesday, Biden is in third place and drops out of the race, all of Trump's efforts will have been entirely self destructive. Tactically, It would have been a lot wiser to wait until Biden was a sure thing before having Rudi dig up phony dirt.
5
A rough equivalent of Giuliani’s current trip to Ukraine would be G. Gordon Liddy inviting the media to join him as he attempts to break in to the DNC headquarters the day after Nixon’s smoking gun tape became public, and then - with Nixon’s blessing - promising to report to Congress and the DoJ as to how it all went.
But only if Liddy was widely known to be on Nixon’s personal payroll at the time and they had both publicly bragged about their crimes.
2
Giuliani did nothing to gain his "America's Mayor" moniker but if his activities lead to Trump's arrest and conviction, I will say he's earned it.
9
Wow!! We’re in this big mess because RG needs to be validated and have his ego stroked. Sounds like someone else who is always in the news. They don’t care about our country, it’s all about them. Absolutely incredible!!!
5
A blind dog in search of the warm fuzzy spotlight leading a blind, dotard of a man who's the leader of the free world. What could possibly go wrong?
7
Let's not blame Giuliani for what Trump has done.
It's Trump's narcissistic greed and what Putin has dangled in front of him.
Giuliani has only a small piece of it.
3
I can't even look at Giuliani's photo for long. An obviously dishonest, corrupted soul. His standard American flag lapel pin fails as palliative.
6
The piece does not make this clear but it seems as though Trump will always be haunted by the fact that he was not popularly elected and Giuliani's penchant for righteousness is a perfect conduit to investigate such a cooked-up scheme. As a people, we need to be more skeptical of people who say they want to root out corruption because it can become shorthand for eliminating political enemies. It seems we should look at Trump's claims of draining the swamp and this activity as a form of "anti-corruption" that should be concerning.
On a somewhat related note, this important article still misses the mark because it still tries to give the ginned-up Biden issue the imprimatur of legitimacy when it has been thoroughly discredited. Furthermore, what is being described is abnormal and it would he described as a scandal if these activities were conducted by another nation. Normalizing this behavior turns this reporting to something only a little better than an access piece.
3
I think this Rudy is the real Rudy he has been barely hiding all along.
I suspect he may be terminally ill and is doing this because he intends to take his own life before being made to account for himself or openly saying no in a court of law when asked.
3
Rudy Giuliani talks and acts like a man who is desperate for money -- so desperate, that he might say and do almost anything, and even ally himself with the criminal interests he once opposed.
In the middle of a catastrophic divorce, his lavish lifestyle -- including six homes and eleven country club memberships is costing him a quarter of a million dollars a month. Now that he is under investigation by SDNY, his legal fees are approaching $100,000 a month. He has lost his highest-paying job, a six-million dollar a year law partnership.
For a counterintelligence officer, these would all be signs of a person who has been -- or soon will be -- compromised by adversaries of the United States. Rudy is skating on thin ice, and the ice is about to break.
9
(Nobody tell Giuliani that Barr has already stabbed him in the back.
Trump’s henchmen fighting each other is very beautiful to behold.
It’s like a direct to video heist movie wherein the bit players are sanitizing each other while the boss smirks with the loot.)
2
"“Before the 2016 election, Rudy was running around hawking Life Lock on commercials that ran at 2 a.m. on channel 83”"
Giuliani's long slide into corruption is a mirror of America's increasingly rapid decline.
Maybe he will be in the end be rightly called "America's Mayor", but for far different reasons than existed in 2001.
3
This article clearly documents that Giuliani, like his co-conspirator Trump, has zero ethics. Lies, slander, bribery, any and all kinds of sleazy dealing and illegality are the same to these characters as truth and decency. What they have in the place of ethics is one simple question, "Does it benefit ME in the short run?" If the answer seems to be yes, they do it. That's all there is there.
4
To the Republicans:
The impeachment proceedings in process are about TRUMP'S behavior. HE is the person the Congress is investigating and who will likely be impeached or "indicted."
Joe Biden is not being investigated; he is not "on trial."
Hunter Biden is not being investigated; he is not "on trial."
If you were SO concerned about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, why did you not investigate one or both AT THE TIME? IF you and TRUMP were so concerned, why didn't you begin to investigate them on day one of Trump's presidency?
Further, Adam Schiff is not being investigated; he is not "on trial."
And, the Whistleblower is not being investigated; he is not "on trial." S/he is merely the messenger that you wish to slaughter and to ILLEGALLY try to expose.
Having conniptions about process is NOT a substitute for honoring your oaths of office. If you are so happy about your president, why are you not presenting exculpatory evidence.
Adam Schiff is not being investigated; he is not "on trial."
The Whistleblower is not being investigated; he is not "on trial."
10
@Leslie You're making too much sense for the people ump loves - "the uneducated" and Barr and the new criminal party that hijacked the republicans. To the Fox/Sinclair/RT brainwashed people, facts are irrelevant.
1
The whistleblower did not start this mess. Mr. Trump did, by violating the constitution and his oath of office. He is guilty and his orders to others to not testify or hand over documents is proof extraordinary
9
I’ve been saying it for 3-plus years now: everything Rudy does is some desperate grasp at relevance. Bloomberg mopped up after 9/11, not Giuliani, who was gone by Jan. 2002. His time on that stage was short, and there’s been no post-NYC mayor gig to put him in the spotlight. So over the years, crazy and irrelevance consumed him, took over and now he’s Trumps bagman in Ukraine, with the world watching and wondering if the US is tilting toward becoming one of the kinds of countries the US traditionally calls out.
4
$260,000 in monthly expenses? 11 country club memberships? Adultry and 3 ex-wives...
How is it that trump and guiliani couldn't be more different from the Americans who continue to support them? Are they these men not perfect illustrations of the "coastal elites" the right rails against?
29
@Aerys - Is your first sentence referring to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly?
Isn't this a Scorsese movie?
17
Giuliani has gone from stellar federal prosecutor to a completely immoral Trump fixer and enabler. His downslide seems to have begun around the same time his personal life began unraveling. If one lies to those in their personal life whom they are supposed to love most then it is just as easy to lie and deceive everyone else. Each time he speaks he further slides into the Trump abyss where so many others have ended up: the road to prison.
8
@Lyd , he was never that stellar as a prosecutor. Most his Wall Street corruption cases fizzled out.
1
The Bidens can come forward and answer republican questions. I think Trump should be impeached, no doubt, but I am also curious about how and why Hunter Biden was so richly compensated for his role in the board at that time. Let's have the whole truth.
1
Sure. After the President is impeached for criminal behavior, we can move on to investigate unethical behavior by the son of the former Vice President (and the President).
2
@Mford
If you suspect Hunter and Joe Biden of corruption, then ask the department of justice to investigate. That should have been the first step. That is the job of the DOJ, not another country.
4
@Mford - Are you just as curious about the Trump spawn helping themselves to our tax dollars?
4
Giuliani sounds like a subordinate eager to ingratiate himself with Trump by doing what he thinks Trump wants. Probably like the NYT says in order to get the job he wanted or something along those lines. I have had such an experience, a subordinate who did something without my knowledge or consent thinking that it would help their career but then turned out to reflect badly on me. In the end no one would believe that I hadn't put the person up to what they had done or did not have knowledge of it. It was true but it just wasn't plausible. It happens.
4
After reading this article I think I better understand both Trump and Giuliani. They both crave the same things and will do or say anything to achieve them. They recognize that in each other and it has become a powerful bond.
Furthermore, there is no discernible moral compass or anchor for either man. Instead, they will adapt at a moment's notice and not be constrained what they may have said last week or two hours ago.
It is really sad that they are taking up so much space in the news. Neither are worthy of that much attention. They are both such pathetic men. I hope our country survives the strife and dissension that they sow on a daily basis.
Impeach both of them if that's possible.
10
The story about Trump humiliating Giuliani in front of staffers on the campaign plane shows Trump's penchant to publicly display dominance, no matter how unnecessary or how hurtful it is. And for both parties, but particularly Giuliani, I am reminded of the Biblical comment about giving up your soul for material gain.
11
The late and lamented Jimmy Breslin perfectly described Giuliani many years ago as "a small man in search of a balcony." Any New Yorker who's been around since the '90s can attest to his bullying, his vanity, his crudity, and--his delusional self-perception aside--his very high tolerance for corruption. Google "Russell Harding" and you'll see.
Even with the one stretch of human decency in his career--the week or so after 9/11--he very quickly pivoted to an attempt to stay in the mayoralty beyond his limited term, and then spent years monetizing the fact that he was in office on that horrific day. His aspirations to the presidency ended in large part with the famous remark that every sentence he spoke was "a noun, a verb, and 9/11."
The speaker was Joe Biden, a fact that surely explains Giuliani's ongoing obsession and the current crisis.
11
Guiliani actually DID get a most special position within the Trump administration. It's called "fall guy".
9
As Plato's "Sophist" (ca. 350 BCE) says, Philosophy (love of wisdom) and idea marketing (Sophistry) have something in common. Both depend on argument and criticism.
So too Lawyering and Sophistry.
Legal argument follows rules of court; these like philosophy and all academic disciplines follow rules of dialectical discourse--idea, logical interpretation/critique, better idea--on and on.
Dialectical discourse is only as good as its practitioners. Academics learn the history/methods of their disciplines--ideological subcultures; it's their license to search/research for ever evolving better ideas--aiming at truth.
Lawyering too is a subculture; they learn the history/precedents/policies of their branches of law; it's their license to apply precedents to ever evolving situations--aiming at justice.
Marketing often puts on a show of dialectical discourse--putting products--ideas as well as widgets--in their best light--and the competition in its worst. But the aim is not truth or justice; it's not even better products, ideas or informed consumers. The goal is separating fools from their money or votes.
Fools are the gullible--those not well versed in logical interpretation or justification--suckers for "spin" and ad hominems as critique--suckers for sophistry.
But "democracy" now demeans the educated as "elites". And Giuliani lawyering now does marketing to demean the rules of court and Congress.
4
December 9, 2019
NYC must name its Times Square shuttle bus Streetcar Name Rudy Guiliani - for his glory and self esteem has not bounds and those is in path are forever forgotten by history rightly so.
2
The lure of fame, the cheers from an audience adoringly captivated by his every word and finally the God Syndrome punctuating his "only he has the solution" mindset. It is little wonder that he is on the side of Trump, like mindsets and delusional old men grasping at the stars full of their glory. Giuliani is spent and he couldn't back away. Now he will spend his last dollar and last days in prison. A poster child for those who are corrupted absolutely and a lesson most billionaires and other star struck people will never learn. After all we all know, it is a mental illness that has taken over. Hopefully we stop this madness from continuing in 2020 election.
5
In Persian there’s a saying: a smart enemy is better than a stupid friend! Trump should consider that advice.
8
Imagine having a vanity so strong that it can be used to power through any disasters life throws your way, including the ones said vanity caused in the first place.
9
I wonder where that Giuliani smile will be when he’s doing the perp walk on the way to court to be indicted.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
So true. Except I would only consider trump great when it comes to being a liar. He’s the greatest.
9
The "dirt" dug up by Giuliani and the operative phrase from the Trump transcript "work with Rudy he knows what is going on" is the most potent evidence Democrats have. Donald Trump did not "ask" Ukraine's president to investigate corruption. Donald Trump extorted Ukraine's president to take ownership of said "dirt". This denies the plausible deniability of Donald Trump as a fearless corruption fighter. Make no mistake this is no longer about the Senate several of whom having taken Donald Trump's blood money and will waste no time not only exonerating but pinning a medal on Donald Trump. It is about public perception. This is what should be on the tip of the public's tongue. Instead Democrats put the public to sleep with legalistic babble and wonder why the needle doesn't move.
4
Can't agree with your headline that "Giuliani Led Trump to the Brink of Impeachment." Pres. Trump is more than capable to getting there on his own. We've watched how he conducts himself for nearly 3 years: He's a man who rarely does anything he doesn't want to, and who never gives up anything he's decided he wants. Take a look at this headline, under "In Other News" on the homepage: "Despite Warnings, Trump Moves to Expand Migrant Family Detention".
9
Guiliani has owned the spotlight over Trump which is amazing considering how obsessed the President is with being the only one there. Ole Rudy is treading on thin ice.
4
This whole thing is a waste of time and tax payers money unfortunately, because Trump and his Republicans don’t really care about the truth.
It would be better if Democrats simply took the vote and impeached him now or earlier and spared the country the expense.
But, Trump would use that as the excuse. So, this charade of a public investigation and fact finding continues.
So, let it continue and Trump needs to be impeached, at least to leave a record for history about his corruption and ethical and moral incompetence.
Then, hopefully, next year voters will take of him!
3
@Freak I'm willing to pay the "expense" to create the legal record to indict them both when this administration is finally over.
7
Clearly The NYT is not patient enough. They should have kept this article to publish it just after Trump telling White House reporters that he has heard of Giuliani but he really does not know the man!
7
Thank you?
Giuliani has long been lying to and cheating the world. In his first term of office as mayor he and Randy Mastro (Chris Christie's Bridgegate attorney) routinely gave the New York City Economic Development Corporation economic numbers they wanted, not accepting the truthful numbers from many studies and surveys. He lied and spinned his way to a second term, did a couple of good things like promote health insurance for children. Overall, a sham and a shame for our City.
10
Every time a woman is killed in an act of domestic violence (as happened recently in a nearby community) people always ask why she stayed. Trump's relationships with his underlings--and isn't everyone an underling in his mind?--appear to have the same kind of toxic mix of praise and abuse.
And it's worked. Apparently, on about 40% of the American public, too. And, like the new woman, they watch him but they don't learn. Because, he loves THEM, right? And, like the middle-aged, overweight woman who proudly wore her tee shirt with an arrow pointing toward her genitals and the words "Trump can grab this" hand-painted on the front, apparently imagines that he would look at her and see, what, exactly, does she think he'd see?
I want to understand, but I watch astounded.
14
The fact that Mr. Giuliani, at this critical time for Trump's presidency, is still in Ukraine trying to dig dirt on Bidens should tell something to those following the impeachment process. It simply shows the extent to which Mr. Trump and his gang are wedded to the idea that, for Trump to win the next election, Joe Biden needs to be smeared politically in the public eyes. And they have been, and they will be, trying to get there by hook or by crook.
3
I am not a Trump supporter and his acts are despicable but Biden and is son are saying this was just a coincidence. Really?
It is possible to find both Trump and Hunter Biden to be in the wrong, but there’s a question of SCALE and IMPACT.
Other than Hunter Biden making coin, what was the harm in his having been named to the Board of Burisma?
Now. What is the harm of Trump perpetuating a fairytale about the 2016 election having been interfered with, not by Russia, but by UKRAINE?
Hint: Trump is disseminating Russian propaganda. Willingly!
3
If there were legit reasons to investigate any American's illegal activity then Trump should have used legal mechanisms via US investigation & law enforcement agencies.
Back door deals and a vendetta against all critics (2 Ukrainians wrote op eds critical of Trump) are not legit responses on an international stage.
Many Ukrainians disliked Trump for his overt support of Russian interests. Trump's positions before and after election were strangely pro-Putin and continues to reveal frequent consultation with Putin at pivotal moments.
Wake up America.
8
This is the tale of a sad old man that craved the spotlight so much that he sold his soul, his reputation, his credibility for Donald Trump. Giuliani will now always be remembered as a somewhat deranged cable television barker, spouting ridiculous contradictory statements all over the airwaves, engaging in deeply suspicious entanglements with dubious characters from Eastern Europe, and doing Donald Trump's dirty work in the Ukraine.
What a sad end to a formerly brilliant man. I never agreed with his brand of politics, but at least back in 2001 he was a man of integrity, and a man who did his job seriously and professionally. He should have retired gracefully, but no. He chose to self-destruct and implode in the name of Trump. Why?
6
@Andy
Please read some of the comments here written by New Yorkers. Your opinion about Giuliani being "a formerly brilliant man" and "a man of integrity" might change.
4
@at Andy
Yeah he mainly told us to go shopping..?!
The authors missed an important point in the chronology of the Giuliani / Trump relationship.
They write: "They had known each other for nearly 40 years...With Mr. Trump as co-chairman of his first campaign fund-raiser, Mr. Giuliani ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1989." The article is silent about what happened mid-1980.
Before Mr. Giuliani ran for Mayor of NYC, when he was a Federal Prosecutor in NY Southern District, he made the decision to dismiss a case against Mr. Trump for money laundering that involved a local mob figure and an illegal gambling operation in the Trump Tower.
In the article where I read about this, Mr. Trump then later supported Mr. Giuliani in his run for Mayor but also donated cash to his campaign.
It is sad that the NY Times won't give a little more attention to the mob element that underlays a significant aspect Mr. Trump's business history...because it remains a fixture of all that he does today in presidency.
Mr. Giuliani's and Mr. Trump's common behavior and manner and method have been employed since well back in the mid 1980's, and neither have been held accountable. As a result, they are both emboldened and believe themselves above the law.
13
Giuliani is a total loose canon, but he clearly has something to hold over Trump's head. His outrageous actions have not been even commented on by Trump. Like so many people that Trump fails to insult (like Putin). Giuliani is engaged in incipient blackmail. He could bring Trump down in a nanosecond, and Trump knows it.
8
Giuliani acted as the unregistered agent of a foreign government while on the payroll of the US President. In his case, the payroll meant the substantial preferments or appointments he would receive under certain circumstances.
In doing so, Giuliani converted Trump himself into an unregistered foreign agent, a pretty clear reason for the Constitution's encomium to avoidance of any US President's doing any foreign business for any reason other than 100% pure US national interest.
4
Once again, a miserly cheapskate finds out that it would have been less expensive to pay for competent counsel and follow it.
3
In 1999 I was driving a taxi in NYC. One night I picked up a middle-aged man who after some conversation told me he was a police officer who worked in Mayor Giuliani's office and saw him every day. After listening to a sampling of my grievances about his boss, he asked me this rhetorical question:
"Why do you suppose Mayor Giuliani has been so tough on street vendors and taxi drivers?" This was in a period of time between 1998 - 2000 when cabbies were being ticketed on a daily basis by the NYPD for offenses such as having an entry missing on their trip sheets or wearing sandals. It was like a local pogrom which began in May of '98 when the drivers pulled off a one-day work stoppage in protest to new and discriminatory rules being foisted upon them by the mayor. (Considering that there's no union it was something of a labor miracle.)
His answer: "Because food vendors and taxi drivers are often Muslims. The mayor sees Muslims as terrorists."
Historically this kind of racist scapegoating has been used very successfully by certain demagogues in other countries. It's tougher to pull off in America due to our adherence to the Constitution.
Let's keep it that way.
6
One of the oddities of the Trump presidency will remain how he managed to have all those lawyers, former prosecutors and advisors, some in their late 60s and 70s, not only working for him — but having them put their entire decades long career, private life, wealth and (seldomly) reputation at risk for Trump. Sometimes ending up in jail at gereatric age. Why?
So many Stones and Manaforts were gambling with the president but were ultimately consumed during the game, like moths attracted to light.
And so will Giuliani.
9
Two corrupt men hungry for power and basking in, unrepentent and unaware of what those around them care about or think. With supporters and aides ready to do their bidding without care or concern for their country or people (the majority). Time to end this...and please, stop the obstruction with ridiculous arguments that they are the victims (of the impeachment their actions have led us to). NATO cancels a meeting owed to their corruption aided and abetted by the Danish Ambassador. Is there to be a daily abuse of power? So far it seems so.
3
I wish people would drop the term, "personal 'political' advantage," as with this group of grifters, personal financial gain and political gain are synonymous. Personal gain would seem to suffice.
4
So, did Rudy G lead Trump to the brink of impeachment as payback for Trump not giving Rudy the job Rudy wanted?
There is no evidence that Rudy did not do that.
2
Whatever he did in the past the fact remains that this sycophant to power is a living testament to just how low a person can and will go in service to a man like Donal Trump.
There is something deranged about his grinning face, his rambling incoherent attempts to justify and cover up for a man who almost literally does nothing else but.
The fact the President has chosen a man like Rudy to be his ''lawyer'' tells you all you need to know about the cough, president.
One hopes he gets the chance to rub shoulders with that other stellar legal mind Cohen, with plenty of time to reflect on their life choices. With any luck they will be joined in a year of so by the Donald himself. Could make for quite a T.V. show.
5
Rudy has always wanted to be a mover and a shaker and secretly he must have envied the mobsters he went after. Rudy is totally out of his league and is currently acting like a cat on a hot tin roof. Trump needs someone to be his flunky and water carrier. Michael Cohen is doing time for serving Trump and now Rudy is doing his best to join him in the Fed lockup.
8
Wow, never thought I would say this, but Guilani's ethics make Trump look like a choirboy. Very scary to think this man once ran New York.
2
Giuliani didn't "lead" Trump anywhere he didn't already want to go. As President Truman explained on a plaque on his oval-office desk: "The Buck Stops Here."
2
Trump is POTUS. If anyone did any leading to the brink of impeachment, it was Trump.
5
Good job, Rudy. You got Trump back pretty good for that incredible snub. You've got a little way to go, however, in getting two of your in-your-back enemies - Mike Pompeo and William Barr - though.
4
The Guardian reports that Trump is now ahead of every Democratic candidate in the three swing states. Trump has a huge propaganda machine at work for him, and it's succeeding in blowing enough smoke to cloud people's brains. Ted Cruz is now on record saying he thinks Ukraine was the meddler, not Russia, despite all evidence to the contrary. Has anyone looked into his ties to the NRA, and the blood money Russia has been funneling into U. S. campaigns via its donations to the NRA? Russia has been caught red-handed giving lots of money to this organization, and many Republican politicians, like Devin Nunes and Ted Cruz, are owned by the NRA, lock, stock, and barrel. What's the connection? Also, what's the connection between Sean Hannity and the White House? And the connection between Trump's Chinese trade war pronouncements and the movements of the stock market? Is he really signaling his cronies on Wall Street to make or withdraw investments in the market, depending on weathervane announcements? Some guy from Infowars accused Congress of treason for carrying out its constitional duty by impeaching the president. Where's Josh Owens, the former Infowars employee who admitted that Infowars fabricates its stories to keep the neo-fascists stirred up? Republicans are mixed up in quite a few suspicious situations that definitely warrant some serious and truthful investigation. Am waiting for journalists who don't want Republicans to take away their 1st amendment rights to get going!
6
Who is this guy? What happened to the good guy we all knew and loved? SAD.... ....
1
@sues
He's the same guy. You just didn't know him that well in Elmira.
3
@sues He was never a good guy.
2
Before the year is out, Trump will issue a statement that he really doesn't know Giuliani; that Giuliani only worked for him 'Briefly" and that he may have taken a picture with Giuliani "many years ago". And Fox News will dutifully report this nonsense.
9
He’s so terribly sick, one almost, almost, feels sorry for him.
3
I used to admire Mr. Giuliani as q great Mayor - it turns out he is just very low down Politician!
What a disappointment.
Ary Kempler
A finely-crafted piece that naturally omits some details. So please allow one New Yorker to add some early, predictive background.
I, too, was a Giuliani fan since hearing him speak against corruption, while in law school.
Then he became mayor & an ugly side emerged.
For instance, during his radio show, the bereaved mother of a young black man shot in the back by police while fleeing called in. I expected sympathy for the distraught woman, even if coupled with support for the NYPD.
But Giuliani instead lashed out viciously at her & pitilessly told her she should have raised her child better, revealing who he truly was: a mean-spirited bully.
He was also a race-baiter & made a show of ordering an army of police to descend on Harlem on a Sunday morning, in response to a demonstration linked to D.C.'s Million Man March. The NY event was a dud—but African-American churchgoers were kept from worship: Giuliani had closed down the streets, as if to show who was boss.
Then there was his bizarre request—during his divorce—asking a judge to order his wife to allow his then mistress to stay in their home (together with his wife & kids). The judge said no, of course. But it was the last straw for most.
Suffice it to say Giuliani had become a NYC pariah—until 9/11 struck & suddenly the nation confused him for a savior, of all the absurdity: even his 9/11 decisions were awful. He merely showboated.
This piece shows Rudy today. But we in NYC find little new here about an awful man.
9
@Ric Fouad
Correct.
1
Money doesn't talk, it swears.
3
This is all very familiar. I watched, with initial disbelief, from the inside as an identical dynamic destroyed my employer in the 1980's.
It began with a pernicious malady of leadership I call BigShot-itis. (In its most severe expression it has been identified as the Dark Triad.) Like a gathering storm it attracted a coalition of very clever but narrowly focused self-serving sociopaths who acquired sufficient institutional authority to change the rules, evade the law, and enable a corruption of operating standards to produce a system I call Racket Science. It only drowned when the overconfident pigs tried to steal more than they could swim with.
Then I watched the same thing take down Enron, Arthur Andersen, and many Wall Street predators.
The same effect crashed the economy in 2008.
Two things can stop such a disease epidemic. Either an educated public learns the techniques of effective hygiene or the disease wipes out its last vulnerable victims.
We've been struggling with the threats of BigShot-itis and Racket Science for over 200 years with periodic wins and losses. When tracked as the peaks and valleys of our learning curve, we seem to have wandered once again into a dark valley. Friendly observers are aghast. Hostile opportunists are drooling.
15
I wonder why Rudy still hasn’t figured out that nobody invites the guy who slops the pigs and manures the lawn to the state dinner?
I guess with those expenses, he just can’t afford to.
13
You have it wrong: it’s how Trump led Trump to the brink of impeachment.
12
They give a lot of weight to his ex-wife's take on things.
1
@Eric
How about his children, then, who when their father was running for president in 2007 publicly stated that they wouldn't vote for him?
Or how about his second ex-wife who learned from the media that her husband had announced that he was divorcing her?
7
Wrong headline. Should be "The Indefensible Man." For four months in 2001 he rose above himself, then reverted to his prior racism and xenophobia, and added astonishing dishonestly to his list of "attributes." He is "indispensable" only in adding fuel to Trump's toxic fire. One can only imagine how much worse - and how much faster - Trump's damage to our standing in the world would have been had Giuliani actually been secretary of state. America weeps for the damage he has already done.
17
Giuliani and Trump are Tweedledum and Tweedledee, comrades in narcissism, braggadocio, bullying, and an insatiable need for the limelight born of deep insecurity. After his showboating tenure as a prosecutor, Giuliani's quintessential act as mayor of New York was to fire Bill Bratton, the police commissioner, because Bratton was getting so much publicity for his success with "broken window" policing. Rudy and the Donald are mirror images of each other - puffed up Willy Lomans to whom "attention must be paid.'
14
"...six houses and $230K a month in expenses..." The well worn adage "follow the money" seems to be germane.
18
I guess he needs 11 country club memberships because he would be persona non grata in most public venues.
22
Not once in this article is it clear that Rudy's somewhat shady business deals help the interests of the people or the government of the United States. Sure, they benefit the ultrarich or those who wield power. This makes him a American hero?
7
Charles Degaull said it best, that "the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men." Perhaps jails as well, where Gulianni would seem to belong.
11
How come it's always someone else's fault? Always!
Trump blames everyone else. The Republicans blame everyone else. Trump supporter's blame everyone else. The Trump admin, Trump's family, Trump's celebrity friends blame everyone else. The NYTimes blames Giuliani, and the list goes on.
This suggests that Trump has no agency.
How many are pulling on the puppet's strings?
7
Could Rudy be punishing Trump for not naming him Secretary of State?
8
Giuliani is only one of many, many enablers who helped lead trump to impeachment.
5
Who has the time to spend at eleven country clubs?
9
You call Giuliani an "unpaid personal counsel to the president " but he is being paid. He's paid directly by Russia, the country that supports, encourages and aids Donald Trump. He's paid through contracts that try to make it seem like he's being paid for security advice to towns in Ukraine, or other reasons but the payment is for his support of Russia and Trump.
12
I'm waiting for the day, which will be soon, when bone spurs will claim that he doesn't really know Rudy.
10
A good President must be a good CEO who chooses his assistants well. President Trump chose Rudy Giuliani to be his assistant to get the Ukrainian president to "investigate" the Bidens. Mr Trump did not choose well and thus we have further proof (among hundreds of other proofs)of his incompetence as POTUS.
6
“As a person who finds public corruption a cancer,” Mr. Giuliani said, “I cannot ignore it.”
Rudy prefers to commit corruption in private.
"America's mayor"?
More like Moscow's go-fer.
11
Guess the Times could have published a lot of this material before the Trump election.
10
Except for the stuff on Parnas, they kinda did. Do a search, and you’ll see it.
You didn’t pay the slightest attention, and I’ll bet you didn’t bother to vote. So let’s stop looking for alibis and scapegoats for the mess we’ve created, okay?
9
@The Iconoclast
In his two interviews with Times editors - one before and one after the election - Trump has said a lot of crazy things that have not been shared with Times' readers. We know some were asked to be off-the-record, but one wonders if Times could have saved the country and the world from Trump by publishing his statements in full.
I am speculating that he agreed to the second interview because he was worried that if he did not, some of the dangerous things he said in his first interview could become public. After all, he knows how to deal with media and buy their silence, when the price is right!
I guess we have to wait for him to disappear in the sunset before we learn about those crazy things, assuming we will be around by that time.
3
“These morons,” Mr. Giuliani said. “When this is over, I will be the hero.
Hubris takes another human being down the rabbit whole of self deception. Mr. Giuliani, anti hero at best and more than likely an indicted co conspirator are the more likely outcomes of this debacle.
19
Rudi didn’t lead trump anywhere. Your headline is balony.
3
One can only hope that Giuliani's toadyism toward Trump will be rewarded with a new position -- in an orange suit!
18
Our Dem witnesses have to talk directly to the trump voters: “You sent him to Washington to do a job for you, to help you and he hasn’t done it at all. Not at all. He never intended to, he conned you, he used you and he has betrayed you. He’s going to deliver absolutely nothing to you. He wants nothing to do with you. He only wants to enrich himself. And he’s going to continue to betray you as long as you allow him to do so. Every single day. Why would you do that?” Unless we turn some of these people toward the obvious criminality of trump, the entire country is, once again, going to be “OJ’d”
15
Congratulations, Giuliani:
You wanted the spotlight. Well, you got it -- in the form of an historic marker as one of the U.S.'s most deplorable individuals.
31
Trump deserves Giuliani...Giuliani deserves Trump. The two have a symbiotic relationship that mutually enforces their unethical, corrupt, narcissistic personalities.... with most GOP members in Congress and the Senate, in close tow behind them...
16
There is still time for Giuliani to spend few nights on Rikers. Poetic justice would be served.
9
I think; I have started to dislike all media now - including liberal media.
I agree that you need to be fair; but it's most important to be truthful. NY times and others should decide - if they want to be truthful or balanced(between GOP & Dem or across all sides).
If one side is lying then representing their lie is not a balanced news; it's a broadcast of their false propaganda. That's why more and more naive Americans are being lost to Russian propaganda; and we see one of the another senator falling into that.. (only GOP senators though).
It's clear based on all life that Trump has been consistently bad; Giuliani was converted GOP Bad boy; just like other GOP congressmen..
Why push false narrative that Giuliani did this.. it's Trump - who is pushing this by holding a gun on others(here: Giuliani) shoulder.
3
@P2 As you speak flattery for Rudy, he's busy constructing a fake video in Ukraine, against the people of that country, and for one of America's fiercest enemies, Russia. All designed to facilitate the sabotage of our next election.
The Washington Post did a better account on Giuliani.
2
America's Mayor or Betrayor? You be the judge. Once the media creates a myth they hate to let it go. Wayne Barrett rest in peace.
3
@Sophocles Not to excuse the way the media lionize people, but sometimes the story just changes over time. Consider Bill Cosby, for example.
Rudy just wants to be an actor on a stage. These days he likes to play the villain as Trump's 'fixer.' Here's the President's personal attorney over in Ukraine still trying to dig up dirt from foreigners on the Bidens--while impeachment hearings are going on!
He's also trying to prove a well-debunked conspiracy theory invented by Russian intelligence and promoted by right wing media. Now you know how Donald has always operated. Get a 'fixer' lawyer to do your dirty work, then claim attorney/client privilege.
6
Let's get real here. Rudi is getting slammed here. OK. But on the morning news, Biden claimed (after a lifetime in Politics) that his Aides failed by NOT informing him that his son's job might be a "conflict of interest". Really????????
2
@vince williams - So? Nothing Biden has or hasn't done in any way excuses Rudi's behavior.
5
@vince williams To understand his response you would need to know how many other children/family of powerful people have profited from their proximity to power, and is it considered business as usual? It is legal so that gives you an idea of the norms.
In comparison few seem to care that Trump, Inc. and Trump's children/family have not only profited financially but two are installed in the White House with security clearances, (and they have no expertise whatsoever), their only claim is bloodlines. Not much of a to-do from Republicans and supporters about that one, even though it is so much further from the norm, and possibly illegal or anti-constitution, than Biden's son's position as to be off the charts.
I think it all unethical at best (but law has nothing to do with ethics or morality) and that this should be obvious to all, including those suckled on entitlement, who opportunistically see it as their inheritance - there are no excuses - at least as far as ethics go. Legal is a whole different ball-game.
3
Trump is leading Trump to the brink of impeachment. He is doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding in Ukraine. If they can all grift some money on the side even better. Why does the NYTs consistently downplay Putin’s interest in all this and his leverage over Trump? Very curious.
10
@Maggie
Access.
Reading about Giuliani this morning has so soured my stomach that I can’t finish my breakfast. What a black way to begin a Monday in December.
11
Is it really Giuliani who’s leading Trump, or is it Trump having Giuliani do his dirty work?
4
So let me see if I have my math straight. Giuliani's household expenses between his alimony, six homes and 11 Country Club memberships run about 230,000 a month. So he needs roughly a million dollars every four months just to survive. That's before savings or other expenses like lawyers fees. No wonder he will stoop to anything to make a buck.
10
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority."
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
Trump and his gang are guilty. We know it beyond all reasonable doubt. Make America Great Again, Remove Trump.
6
Mr. Guiliani might as well keep doing what he's doing. He has to get it all out in the open right now since he is angling for a presidential pardon if worse comes to worst. This gets the President what he wants, too.
1
Giuliani led Trump to impeachment? Not sure I agree. It seems Trump has been fully able to carry that off on his own. Giuliani is a player in the sordid story, as are many others. But let’s not make the mistake of placing the blame on any doorstep other than Trump’s.
5
The occupier of the White House might escape the impeachment charges and keep his position, but my guess is that Gulliani will be the fall guy and end up with a long prison sentence.
This is a sad moral story of how trying to remain in the public eye can generate more problems than laurels.
3
The seeds of Rudy Giuliani's disgusting behavior in the impeachment saga were well planted as mayor and before as U.S. attorney. His racist speech to the police union in front of city hall, his bullying and demeaning and destroying of opponents -not so subtle hints about the sexual preferences of his school chancellor - his vilifying of Amadou Diallo (a hail of bullets that ended his life was not enough for our mayor - he had to falsely discredit him after his death); his elevation of his driver and subsequently convicted criminal Bernard Kerik as police chief. All there, plainly in sight. NYC lost its collective mind, and now the nation is paying a very heavy price.
6
The exceptionally good writing in this piece suggests a lot of work and care, as well as talent. Kudos! But breaking news it’s not. Now, I have to go take a shower to rinse the Giuliani away, hoping I don’t get sited for water pollution.
4
Giuliani's hubris, denials, double talk and lies epitomizes the current Republican party. They care little that their main appeal is to the likes of National Enquirer and Info War followers. They stand for very little other than to protect a very flawed and dangerous man.
4
After reading the whole story I thought this man needs a mental health assessment asap. How is it that a person who earned so much respect after 9/11 goes so low?
But then I went back to the beggining and the clue is there. The numerous houses and villas and whatever. The problem is greed. And that has no cure.
7
No one `led' Trump to the brink of impeachment. This guy was headed toward impeachment from the day he took the oath of office. It's what happens to those who lie, betray and scheme.
6
Giuliani is still desperately digging in the Ukraine to make Trump's Bidens investigation demand look legit. Very much like Trump's people investigating Pres. Obama's birth certificate in Hawaii. "You won't believe what they're finding!" He's off on a fool's errand because some Ukrainians didn't like candidate Trump taking Putin's point of view on their country. That is not the same as interfering in the 2016 election like Russia did.
2
It is clearly evident now that our democracy has broken down when the President employs a personal attorney to help him win an election when character is lacking.
4
“He’s just a whole lot more of what he was,”
That's hardly an endorsement for those of us who lived in New York during Guiliani's tenure as mayor. He claims credit for turning the city around (never mentioning that the resurgence was fueled by a booming national economy and millions of dollars flowing into NYC coffers from Wall Street). But I remember his incredible arrogance, his pathetic craving for attention, his insensitivity bordering on a complete lack of regard on racial matters, and the Giuliani appointees and associates who ultimately became defendants in criminal proceedings.
So truer words were never spoken: he's just a whole lot more of what he was.
5
I think it's time that we put Giuliani,&Trump on the back pages of the News.
Everyone knows that empeachment is a waste of time & that Trump will win in 2029,I'm saying this as a life long Democrat.
The only way we can avoid A Trump President election is a Civil war, which we would also lose.
It's the economy stupid, and unless the economy stalls & dives before the election,Trump is a Shoo in. The other thing is The Republican Senate would never convict their President.
It would be joyfully ironic and schadenfreude if Donald Trump were to pardon everyone found guilty in his administration of violating the law, and to have Trump impeached or convicted of violating financial laws with no one to pardon him. He won’t be able to pardon himself even though he believes he has that right. (WRONG Donny!)
My perfect scenario? Trump and Pence are removed from office, convicted of crimes including money laundering, perjury and colluding with foreign governments to rig the 2020 elections; Nancy Pelosi becomes president in the succession plan outlined in the constitution; Ms. Pelosi initiates investigations of Barr, Pompeo and other corrupt Trump officials; they are all removed from office and prosecuted; things return to normal. Normal, and not the new normal imposed by Trump and his devotees.
... and if everyone dies in the end (preferably by their own hands), it could be an opera!
2
Mr. Giuliani made a “joke” to The Guardian about having “very, very good insurance”
“I really try very hard to be super-ethical and always legal,” Mr. Giuliani said."
These two comments from Rudy simply DO NOT jibe. Very, very good insurance, if used as a cudgel, would almost constitute blackmail, wouldn't it? Holding something that would be considered 'insurance' is neither ethical nor legal. Rudy is simply an old, worn out crook desperately craving attention. Nothing more.
2
The Black Hole of neediness that dominates these Guilianis and Trumps is incomprehensible. The more I know of people, the more I appreciate the cat…
1
This title diminishes the responsibility of Donald Trump. By saying “Led”, you’re implying he was following someone else's lead and thus was not responsible for the actions leading to his impeachment, and somehow a victim of Guiliani. This type of presentation should be rejected by all who read this. You’ve helped play right into Trump's usual blame game.
2
It will become very interesting if his two fla. playmates cut a deal with FBI - it looks as if they might have a paper trail both Rudi & the Donald will have a difficult time explaining.
Anything that gets Rudi off TV as a credible source of information would be a plus for all - except for Trumpland conspiracy folks & FoxNews
Rudy and Trump have a lot in common. They're both complete opportunists.
Giuliani was a Democrat who volunteered on Bobby Kennedy's 1968 campaign.
Giuliani skipped military service with a draft deferment as a judge's clerk.
One difference: Trump's father didn't do time in Sing Sing.
1
The love of money and power has downed many a man throughout history.
Giuliani is no exception and neither is Trump.
2
Giuliani did not lead Trump anywhere. Trump knows exactly what he wants and Rudy simply stepped in to be his new and latest fixer. And Rudy saw the potential for making money too. Rudy has a very extravagant lifestyle, immense spending and huge debt just added to with divorce #3. This is no freebie. Trump or more likely the RNC are not paying Rudy but Rudy is roaming the planet with Trump's blessing looking for new and lucrative business contracts for whatever it is he claim's his business is now.
Two grifters with a big whopper of a scam going out in the open. We are all watching. AG Barr has their back, the DOJ is neutered, FBI and CIA ineffective and derided by Trump, the Trump administration supporting them and the GOP all in with this too.
Trump will be impeached by the House. End of story for impeachment. Donald and Rudy will still be chatting up their latest show in the Oval Office.
Trump may get elected in 2020 and Rudy might get that job after all. There is always an "acting" position somewhere where he can avoid a hearing.
Crazy? Not any more so than the Trump administration today. The man is capable of things we never thought possible. Buckle up folks.
2
@Elizabeth - ".... Rudy simply stepped in to be his new and latest fixer."
Rudy should not be called Trump's personal attorney. His position in Trump's family is acting as consigliere.
2
Two narcissists made for each other.
I hope to live long enough to find out what being-thrown-under-the-bus "insurance" Guliani has, and what "Biden evidence" is in his safe.
If the use of the phrase "Florida men" to describe Parnas and Fruman was a nod to the show Atlanta, it's genius. It captures the weirdness of this made for the tabloids imbroglio.
2
We need both Trump’s AND Giuliani’s tax returns inspected.
2
The "spin" is staggering. Notice, Trump and Guiliani never actually give FACTS, they simply infer. They use tabloid headline tricks which fits Twitter perfectly. Between Fox and these two spinners, sadly most have NO idea what the truth is.
NO MATTER WHO, VOTE BLUE.
1
Interesting article. And yet by focusing so much attention on Mr. Giuliani, the Times--unwittingly, I'm sure--is helping Trump throw Rudy under the bus. Or at least clipping him with a taxi before the bus mows him down. Metaphorically speaking.
@Michael Gallagher Not a problem, Trump probably can't read
1
I remember Giuliani as US Attorney for the SDNY in the 70s, bringing down the mob but, more encouragingly, in my view, taking on Milken, Boesky, et al on securities fraud.
.
Then, who could forget his solidness in the wake of 9/11. One of the good guys.
.
Now he just seems the living embodiment of how money corrupts. Sad, really, to see him peddle his reputation in such an undignified way these past years. He gave away something money can't buy, and he'll never get it back.
351
@West Coaster I would think that a lot of politicians are driven by the desire to become famous. Sometimes you become famous for doing good things, especially when you are on the side of the people like Rudy was. He was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of it and luckily the opportunities were for the public good.
Now his choices are limited, so he takes what is at hand, the drive is still there but the opportunities for good aren't there for him.
8
Unfortunately, "America's Mayor" is the common image that many people outside of New York remember when they think of Giuliani. However, if you probe into his record, he left a trail of abuses and mismanagement while he was Mayor, and laid claim to accomplishments that preceded him. Crime started declining under Dinkins when Ray Kelly served as Police Commissioner back in the early 1990s. It was on his watch that the Abner Louima case of police abuse took place, when the police said it was "Giuliani Time", representing rampant police abuse against minority groups. He appointed Bernard Kerik as Police Commissioner, who was a driver for him only a few years prior: Kerik was convicted of conspiracy and tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. He never relocated the Emergency Operations Center from the WTC complex, as advised after the 1993 bombing at the original WTC towers, which was destroyed in the 911 attack, and after inheriting a surplus when he started his term, he left the City in deficit when he left. Hardly, great record.
64
@West Coaster
If I remember correctly, Mayor Giuliani sent First Responders to work at the very toxic Ground Zero without the proper protective equipment. Many sickened and died from the Mayor's negligence. Trump probably likes it that Giuliani is representing him for free. In the end he may find that the price for Giuliani's services is quite high.
57
Trump's new "fall guy". Giuliani will fall on his sword and say the Ukraine coercion scheme--holding back military aid, investigating the Bidens, and even investigating the debunked idea of Ukranian election interference in 2016--was all his idea, that he acted on his own and Trump didn't know a thing.
Trump will say the same thing, handily skewering Rudy to avoid impeachment.
One can wonder how a POTUS could be so clueless about the activities of his minions. But he'll not defend Rudy, or profess knowledge of Rudy's actions.
With no proof of connection, no emails, memos, witnesses to conversations between the two attention-seeking, vain and insecurity-challenged men, it will be difficult to impeach Trump.
85
@Lilou Trump WILL be impeached. I think you mean to say that he will not be convicted. Of that I am equally certain: the Senate Republicans will acquit Trump.
55
@Lilou Rudy is not that loyal; when push comes to shove it will be every man for himself. He is in the Ukraine now to try to salvage what shred of a reputation he thinks he has left. Most Trump lovers think he's as bad as a lingering nuclear cloud. The problem is, there is no one there with any decency to give him believable ammunition.
25
@Lilou Trump knew exactly what he was doing in relation to Ukraine, as evidenced by the testimony of witnesses during the impeachment inquiry.
66
One has to wonder how Guiliani's self image as "ethical" comports with his willingness to smear opponents with the poison arrows of doubt, the hint of scandal and innuendo.
157
@G Siegner
It looks like Rudy is suffering from "mobster envy".
5
Excuse me, I must go take a long, hot shower after wading through this article detailing the non-corruption of Giuliani. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to make barrels of money and, with Rudy, be the star of his own show.
By the way, there is no such thing as being "super-ethical". You are either ethical or you are not. It is very difficult to dip your hands deep into dirty waters and say you did so with high ethics. And, a great number of people named in this story are in jail right now or under indictment.
289
@Doug Terry
Super ethical...
Perfect phone call...
They came from the same mold.
23
@Doug Terry
"By the way, there is no such thing as being "super-ethical". You are either ethical or you are not."
Yes to this.
20
@Doug Terry What will Giuliani be able to do with his newly gained "Barrels of money"?
4
We need to do a computation most financial advisors do every day to judge the worth of an "investment" - what is the net present value of the future cash flow Guiliani anticipates from his "free" work for Trump?
To be fair we need to remember to include his expected income while serving time in Attica or Rikers making license plates.
5
Isn’t it amazing how greed and the hunger for power don’t diminish in old age? I suspect it’s a rebellion against the rituals of exclusion in our society, that are practiced to segregate and push the aged into the great beyond. As for me, I’m happy to be excluded and not in the company of men like this.
40
The unfortunate part about the Trump-Guiliani circus is the culpable ties they have with organized crime and oligarchs. While they tout its behavior as being insignificant and commonplace they are moving one step closer with their lawsuits to create precedents within our courts that will open new doors in the future for more illicit behavior and corruption.
4
And yet again, nothing more interesting than a need for attention and relevance. Explains 99.99% of politicians and people in the public eye, in some shape or form. Giuliani and Trump are just most cartoonish examples.
7
People fail to remember on the day before 9/11 New Yorkers had grown tired of Rudy. In our need for a Hero the media picked Rudy. Rudy did what any leader should do in such an emergency. Rudy has always wanted to run with the big dogs and live the high life. There are many of my fellow New Yorkers who look forward to the day when Rudy does the perp walk at the Federal Court House in New York.
19
@Steven McCain Count me in that company!
2
Wasn’t it as mayor that Giuliani pushed for the city’s emergency command center to be located across the street from the towers, and in fact in the World Trade Center complex, against advice of police and fire officials? And wasn’t that location offline for many hours after the terrorist attacks? And isn’t it handy that as Giuliani jets around the globe on secretive missions for -1 in a role that didn’t call for Congressional advice and consent, he and the President can claim lawyer client privilege if asked about any of his activities? By a show of hands, how many readers believe Giuliani is working for the President free of charge and without consideration of good and valuable remuneration even if not in cash? Plus, he has that great insurance that will guarantee buses will bounce off him. Will he be subpoenaed by the Senate, should Trump come to trial there?
1
Giuliani privatized his public mayoral records upon leaving office, allowing him the ability to sanitize and limit access to the record of his time in office. The move is indicative of someone who is untrustworthy and has things to hide. Giuliani has not changed over the years, only becoming bolder and brasher. America's Nightmare Mayor.
16
If it is true that Giuliani's actions lead to the impeachment of trump, then yes he is a hero.
10
How sad. In his own mind, he truly has now achieved the greatness he believed was his due. But he seems to have erroneously concluded (like his client) that all publicity is good publicity. As long as his name is in the headline, whatever is in the body copy is irrelevant.
4
Here's the truth if you read on. Wealth is so much easier to accumulate if it's dirty and dark dollars. The present judicial system doesn't have the capacity or will to contain white-collar criminals, especially since 99.99 percent of the time they are the direct bosses of those doing the groundwork. These shameless and nationless crooks have insidiously woven themselves into the fabric of the American flag and people are now saluting them. Democracy Dies in Stupidity.
8
Is there no one in this administration who serves with integrity and ability? Party aside, it is very disheartening to contemplate that we have sunk so low.
12
@F Bragg In a word, no. In fact, you can expand this to the entire Republican party.
1
This is the largest semblance of grifters , liars and crooks that has ever been assembled in our government.
This is the obvious conclusion to most people if money is speech.
10
Money is not only speech, money is EVERYTHING. - GOP
1
Like the sweet anticipation of a long awaited vacation, this article is a pointy paean to Guliani's final chapter, I can taste the tropical air now...
5
That Rudy sees himself as the most ethical guy he knows should give everyone pause.
6
Why is it that Rudy is giving his services to the the president? Isn't this a violation of the emolument clause. The president is not allowed to receive gifts foreign or domestic? Free legal services for a president is certainly quite a large gift. Why a 75 year old man is concerned about all of this, when he should be concerned about his bocce ball game is beyond me.
8
Donald Trump is a micromanager and nobody does anything unless he tells them to do something. Giuliani is just doing what Donald Trump tells him to. this is why Donald Trump is going to be impeached.
8
Giuliani was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; the chief federal law enforcement officer in eight New York counties.
Just look at how far down the slippery, swamp Trump slope he has slid.
2
I suppose it might be possible to frame this as being a case of a paranoid presidential dummy who was duped by the unscrupulous lawyer, Giuliani, with the his conspiracy theories. The problem with that is, if true, he would be under the bus by now. Clearly, like any other extortionist, he knows where Trump's sins lie......and Trump knows it. He will never testify except if it becomes necessary to save himself.
5
It is articles like this that alone justify my subscription to the NYT. If only a few of the "believers" would spend the time to follow the dots. But, even if they did, they would unfortunately still believe in Rudi and Trump despite their being nothing more than fellow megalomaniacs bent on self-aggrondizement rather than serving their country. This is why the Constitution has provisions for impeachment. Great article!
4
Rudi Giuliani, a once respectable mayor with a relatively honorable legacy, is a perfect example of what happens when gluttony becomes poison. He and Trump are made for each other. May Rudi’s ex-wives rejoice.
3
So if Rudy disappears evidence against Biden will be released? Is he implying that Biden would be the one to make him disappear? That doesn't make sense since it's Trump who is in trouble.
1
Brink of Impeachment? This would lead one to think that the brink is as far as it goes. Premature headlines for such an important event are irresponsible. Let the US House Committees vote. Then folks can start their pre and post impeachment conjectures.
2
Arrogant and bombastic people can make life entertaining.
Humble and thoughtful people make life bearable.
Can we all stop this ride...please.
3
Here is a guy that was leading polls for the 2008 Republican nomination before he even opened his mouth. The time came that he had to make appearances and speeches and every time he did speak in public his numbers sank lower.
4
How can anyone with "monthly expenses of $230,000 for six homes and 11 country club memberships" have anything, or any understanding in common with the people that make of Trump's "base" let alone the average citizen? That is EXPENSES, not income. Each month. $2,760,000 annually.
For the vast majority of people who live on a faction of that $230,000 monthly as an annual salary with expenses that break them yet would be pocket change for the likes of Giuliani and Trump are simply outside their reality as much as is the truth.
How can anyone with expenses of that magnitude be unbiased in their dealings? I think it goes a long way to what drives him besides a personal vindictiveness toward others.
RE: "Working on a laptop at a restaurant table in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, he has bathed in the warm acclaim of friends and strangers... He set up a plaque.
Rudolph W. Giuliani. Attorney at law."
Just more proof that Trump's International Hotel is and money and power base for the President.
9
Giuliani needs significant jail time to ponder at the end of his life his ego-centric ways at the expense of the United States. That would be a grand summation for his double crossing the ethical and moral expectations of him in American politics.
10
George Stephanopoulos interviewed Trump in June 2019 in the Oval Office and asked him if he would accept dirt on his potential rivals in the 2020 election without informing the F.B.I. He said: "Why not, of course I would", and as far as I remember mentioned Denmark.
Nothing is rotten in Denmark, but everything is rotten in the US under King Donald I, and bigly so.
8
What is an "unpaid personal council"? Don't both parties need to benefit from a contract? A quid pro quo, if you will. (sorry). What Giuliani offered was access, a shady arrangement at best.
2
Trump's mistake with Rudi is Rudi is no Roy Cohn--not that this is an endorsement of Roy Cohn, but, Cohn left no fingerprints behind when he fixed a Trump problem; Rudi on the other hand goes on Fox news to announce where the skeletons are buried.
9
These people should have been out of our lives ages ago. The reason they are not is the neoconservative infotainment propaganda machine Fox News.
10
These two men are cut from the same insipid cloth. Future cell mates.
5
Headline should not read "How Giuliani led Trump to path of impeachment" rather how "Desperate Democrats look for new ways to White House" !
1
@Cromwell
Democrats in the House and In Congress are just where they need to be, in an oversight role, to help balance executive power.
read it and weep, Cromwell.
This presidents bad deeds will be help accountable, by Democrats alone, or with the non partisan help of other GOP congressmen with brains, and a heart...
8
Am I the only person who wonders who Giuliani's "client" is? He refers to "my client" a lot without saying it is Donald Trump. Is it the Whitehouse? Is it Trump? Is it the Kremlin? Is it some Oligarch?
9
Giuliani would have been better off staying a has-been than publicly devolving into this desperate, seedy figure who has lost his marbles.
7
From hero to zero.
8
For all my republican friends please read this article.
3
Great article.
2
Giuliani is a media hog and crooked fixer who, evidently, is caught up in his own personal celebrity he doesn’t see he’s become the very thing he used to despise.
5
Trump always needs a lawyer/fixer to help as he ignores norms and legality.His longtime fixer, Michael Cohen is now serving time for all the illegalities he engaged in to help Trump.Remember, Trump always said, “I don’t know about that, Ask Michael, he is my lawyer”. When Trump needed a lawyer/fixer for his White House escapades Rudi showed up and took charge of covering up corruption and providing conspiracies.Trump started saying, “Ask Rudy”. The courts will have lots to ask Rudy!
7
He disgusts me at a level so deep that it’s hard to describe.
12
Manafort, even from jail, still dancing Trump and Giuliani on Putin’s puppet strings.
6
Can we honestly say that Giuliani was "unpaid personal counsel to the president"?
Whether specifics are proven or not, I find it hard to believe Giuliani does anything for others without expecting something for himself.
386
@N Stewart
Given the emerging evidence, my guess is that Giuliani was trying to cut his own deals in Ukraine and Russia. If he knows Trump at all, he was not hoping for any money from the boss.
39
@N Stewart
He is being paid in the form of attention and a spot in the limelight. Furthermore, he is cutting all kinds of deals with "clients" all over the world monetizing his access to and influence over Trump. It's no different from Trumps not taking the official 750K salary but making huge sums in his businesses from people who want something from the US government.
47
@N Stewart In the movies, the lawyer always says, "Give me a dollar. OK, now I represent you." There is a line between being a lawyer, advising on legal matters, and being a flunky.
10
Headline correction: How Trump Used Giuliani to Help Him Commit Impeachable Crimes
5
How did Giuliani go from hero to shabby,grinning huxter?
1
Igor Furman is also in the photo of Giuliani attending George Bush Sr.’s funeral.
3
So he's a braggart, a bloviator, and a bald-faced opportunist with no principles. We've known this for quite some time.
"Before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States."
-- Rudy Giuliani, Aug 15, 2016
1
Rudy has almost a quarter of a million dollars in personal expenses PER MONTH. Where's all that money coming from?
FOLLOW THE MONEY!
11
Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives have died to protect our democracy. What would say to them that it was all for nought. That they died to protect foreign influence in our election. That they died to insure the presidency is occupied by a flimflam artist.
Simple folks see simple gestures as sincerity: trump wraps himself in the flag, but has five secret meetings with Putin, where no records exist.
Simple folks see simple gestures as sincerity. He’s going to lower costs of drugs, so he says. Never happened. He’s going to revive fossil fuels that are as dead as a door nail. Miners and buggy whips.
There is no bringing back those who died in vain. Who died for the vanity of one man.
Simple folks will kill America. Remember, if you thought education was expensive, wait till you see the cost of ignorance.
12
I can't wait for the movie!
2
If one of my neighbors began acting like Giuliani, I’d ask the police to do a wellness check.
7
If Rudy, really wants to be a hero, he'd reveal whatever he has on Trump -- obviously he has something pretty big -- and then take a vow of silence in a remote foreign monastery, doing a life of penance for the corrupt, sleazy, traitorous life he's led. Alas, something tells me that's not
going to happen. This will get even uglier I'm afraid. How far we've fallen because of ultra-vain, morally bankrupt men like this.
8
Corrupt.
Are Republicans even Americans? If Rudy is any indication, it sure seems like they hate democracy, and anyone who is not rich.
12
Rudy and the Don: A couple of vultures trying to look like eagles, a couple of hyenas trying to look like lions.
" 'When this is over...' " they should both be in jail.
9
It's a bit disingenous to not mention that as Trump's private attorney, he had every right to be in Ukraine and Russia investigating the origins of the Adam Schiff inspired Russian Collusion evidence.
After all..Mr. Trump is about to be impeached for Russian Collusion, among other things.
If Democrats (and the NYT) doesn't want to allow the White House to defend itself, it should say so within these pages.
Otherwise...Rudy has a job to do and that's gather evidence that Ukraine AND Russia interfered in our 2016 election and all of it was designed to help Hillary and hurt Trump; not the other way around.
Of course..if the Congess wants to afford Mr. Trump due process...they can wait until the Articles of Impeachment have actually been filed..then they can allow Mr. Trump to begin preparing for his defense...which should take 100 lawyers about 10-12 months to get ready before the Senate trial can begin.
This is how it works in every other courtroom in America where a felony is alleged. The defense has ample time to prepare a defense.
Why should this be any different?
Fair is fair..yes?
@Erica Smythe You have missed, or omitted, the issue of impeachment.
7
He’s not being impeached for Russian collusion. He’s being impeached for attempting to shake down the Ukrainian President by withholding funds, for his own political gain.
3
@Erica Smythe
Giuliani has the right to investigate all sorts of things that, in terms of plausibility, are equal to whether Ukraine interfered in 2016 to help Clinton. He can travel to Kenya to prove that Barack Obama was born there. He can visit Rock Creek Park in DC to investigate the murder of Vince Foster. He can go back to his old stomping grounds in NYC to prove that his decision to locate the emergency command center in the World Trade Center was the right one.
But if he is found to be complicit in a bribery scheme in any of these endeavors, he’ll have to face the legal consequences. As you say, fair is far.
2
So the pre-Trump crime-busting, city-building, moralizing self-righteousness was nothing more than an all you can eat buffet for his insatiable ego. What a sad small person Mr. Giuliani has turned out to be.
6
Love Rudy's diamond pinky-ring affectation. The things he learned while hanging with the mobbed up section of NYC. Thanks for giving us one more clue Rudy.
8
Although Giuliani was popular with many as mayor of NYC, he was an unabashed lover of autocracy. His vision was the right one and anything would be done to disallow naysayers. I distinctly remember how he shut out community leaders from having a voice at the table. He would publicly scorn those for questioning him whether they would be reporters or advocacy groups for the homeless, for minorities, or for education. People didn't argue because the streets were cleaner, so it was all okay. I didn't see it as okay at the time, and today Giuliani can be found skulking around in the shadows like Trump's own Polonius, faithfully serving another autocrat. At all levels, there's the vision that the GOP believes is right for America, and democracy is going to play no part in getting in the way.
14
The problem that Rudy presents for the Democrats, as this article points out, is that he is a tenacious and highly accomplished lawyer.
Unless the premise of Democrats is that Trump can be accused, but is not allowed any type of defense at all, Rudy was doing his duty to try and figure out how to defend Trump against the Democrats' fake Trump Russia collusion nonsense fairy tale.
Turns out, it wasn't that hard given how obviously fake Democrats' claims are and were.
What Rudy has is documentation of what actually happened.
Much like the recent attacks on John Solomon , for daring to provide actual documentation of fact that is decidedly against the narrative, Rudy must be attacked.
It is the documentation that is still there, though.
@Ken Thanks for again proving that you can fool some of the people all of the time.
If Trump was interested in mounting a defense, have him testify. We all know why that won’t happen. Perjury isn’t pretty.
8
If Democrats "fake' Russia collusion is a "fairytale," doesn't that make it true? Be careful, Ken, Fox News writers often have trouble understanding the double-negative.
6
So innocent, so wrongly accused, yet so unwilling to answer questions in person under oath.
6
" 'He’s just a whole lot more of what he was,' Mr. Oxford said."
This is the key to the article, and one could see the seeds of this in Giuliani's behavior 30-40 years ago: The self aggrandizement, the ego.
For this reason, I never voted for him as mayor. He is one who says "I am the law" instead of "I follow the law." Dangerous.
And his tombstone WILL say" "I lied for Trump." But as he said, he will be dead.
18
Not only is Giuliani now deeply corrupt, he also seems deeply delusional. It will take the nation a generation to recover from the rampant criminal conduct of Trump and his associates.
14
What I don't understand is ,where does Giuliani have the right to speak and negotiate on our governments behalf. As far as I know he holds no government post nor does has he have government clearance to conduct government business.
28
A good article and valid comments here today about the president's Lawyer. But, this is old news. Our current system of Government just sways back and forth in regard to corruption. It starts with our Mayors, Governors, Congress and the Pres. Nothing new here.
But, are you ready for Rudi when he brings back the Ukrainian Prosecutor whom Biden requested be fired for testimony in the Senate? Rudi will play this game and save my President.
It's all wrong or it's all right. But Trump will be the President in 2020.
1
I understand that this is an article about Giuliani, but the title and body of the piece is a bit misleading: Trump has done plenty on his own to lead to impeachment. If Giuliani hadn't "escorted" Trump there, he would have found a hundred paths to the impeachment hears all on his own.
12
Giuliani and Trump are two peas in a pod, mirror reflections of each other's psyche, both possessing a love of center stage and the spotlight, both determined to do anything in order to remain in that light.
It has worked so well for Trump and to a degree, Giuliani as well. But Mr. Giuliani hasn't taken into account one very important factor: Donald Trump holds no allegiance to anyone except himself. Trump will toss his mother under the bus if that's what it takes to avoid legal scrutiny.
As a native New Yorker I remember when Giuliani was mayor and Bill Bratton was the Police Commissioner, two Type A's vying for the credit that came with CompStat and reducing crime in the city. The immovable object and the irresistible force. Giuliani won that contest eventually pushing Bratton out.
He won't be so victorious with Donald Trump. You know it's bad when Bill Barr advises Trump to dump Giuliani. We've seen this play before. Donald Trump: "I barely knew Rudy. He handled some things for me but I hardly know the man."
Deja vu all over again.
5
I remember him. I think he was mayor when I lived there.
2
Giuliani is a flawed character. His egotism doesn't allow him to see what he is doing to himself and those around him. Most dramatic. I thought he was a heroic figure--not the hero, for sure--but one who recognized heroism in others after 9-11. I saw him at every single funeral. But what drove him was the ego. The moment was so fraught with tragedy, we did not see that as his motivation.
6
Mr. Giuliani states that he is probably the most ethical person you ever met, and Donald Trump states that he is the least racist person you ever met (and that he treats women with great respect).
As a born and raised New Yorker until later in life, I grew up with Trump starting around 1980, and Giuliani, when he started his run for Mayor in 1989.
They both have a relationship to NYC that is similar to members of the mob as portrayed in a Scorsese movie. They both have mouths larger than Ralph Kramden's, but neither had the luck to have a wife like Alice or a friend like Norton.
No, they never had such luck, just three failed marriages each, along with a constant, desperate need to stand in the limelight. Sometime within the coming decade we'll most likely see them walking the street in a bathrobe, a la Vincent "the chin" Gigante.
Trump never expected to win the Republican Nomination, let alone the General Election. It would have been better for both, and their families, if he hadn't. As a result of his win, the world has witnessed the bizarre daily deterioration of the two men, along with the Republican Party.
May they all reap what they sow.
14
Mr Giuliani's sense of justice can be encapsulated in the imbroglio where his current wife at the time found out he was divorcing her when he publicly announced it during a press conference.
9
I hope NY takes a close look at their present collection of politicians, businessmen, lawyers, and the various shady characters that tend to lurk around the worst among the above.
It may be red state Republicans that love flamboyant criminals, but they aren't the breeding ground. We don't need any more Donald Trumps.
9
@KJ Uh, DJT is deeply despised here and couldn't be elected dog catcher.
Anyone from a state that elects Marsha Blackburn needs to take a good look at home before accusing NYers of breeding venal and stupid.
And I'm from TN. No shortage of fakes and flamboyant criminals there.
2
@KJ
2016: NY and NYC vote for Clinton, 59% and 79%
respectively.
Tennessee votes for Trump 60.7%.
I hope Tennessee takes a close look at who it it voted for in 2016.
1
@KJ
2016: NY and NYC vote for Clinton, 59 and 79& respectively.
Tennessee votes for Trump 60.7%.
I hope Tennessee takes a close look at who it it voted for in 2016.
1
Mr. Giuliani's zeal to fight for Trump has provided the rope with which to hang himself. By doing the president's dirty work on Ukraine, he put himself in the position of a scapegoat. When push comes to shove, Mr. Trump will transfer blame for the fiasco to Mr. Giuliani and will very likely turn his back on him. The big question is, will Mr. Giuliani then turn on the president. High drama to follow with pointed fingers as the preferred weapons. He desperately wanted a seat at the big table and got it. As they say, be careful of what you wish for.
9
Other than Michael Cohen, there was probably no closer associate to Trump than Giuliani. Neither was offered a job in his Administration. That says quite a bit about all three of them.
6
What in the world does someone do to merit a $6M a year salary?
6
This article is the script for the most unbelievable movie that will come out around October 2020!
3
Is “unpaid counsel” another name for lobbyist?
3
Underestimating Rudy lead a lot of criminals to jail. No one knows better than Rudy what "reasonable doubt" looks like. If there is one thing we should learn from Rudy's successful prosecutorial career, he always has a plan. Via his many contacts in Ukraine I expect him to find enough politicians who will testify in the kangaroo court (aka: senate) that Ukraine corruption was rampant and Biden and son were in the middle of it all.
It may be pure fiction, but "reasonable doubt" is achieved and the republican senate lackeys can gleefully exonerate Trump.
But Nancy & Adam are also savvy. There is no reason to rush to the senate where vindication of the worst president in 243 years is virtually assured. Expect them to roll out Mueller's report & the treasure chest of obstruction offenses. There is also contempt of congress, abuse of power, Emolument violations galore, corruption of elections, abuse of pardons, and despicable conduct.
Don Corleone would be proud of our president (sic).
I hope/pray/expect Nancy & Adam to roll out all these charges to convince Americans to vote accordingly in 2020. Help them by spending the next 11 months registering voters & educating people. Uncle Sam desperately needs you.
11
Democrats have been calling for Trumps impeachment before he took office. Democrats have had several house failed votes on impeachment already. This has nothing to do with Rudy.
4
@Mr Chang Shih An Republicans keep repeating that lie, just like they keep saying that the Dems paid for the Steele Report, which is misleading: They were sold the information found when they were hired by Cruz's team against Trump, they just repackaged the info and resold it to the Dems, ALSO, but it had been made for the REPUBS.
Just little facts, but very important ones.
Democrats pointed out he had NO experience and was out of his league, but were not calling for impeachment until he started lying, and more than just about crowd size, he immediately started in lying about Government and what he did, such as giving CLASSIFIED Info to the Russians, in the Oval Office, when it endangered Israeli operations and their agents.
Trump is being impeached for his actions, not because the Dems have an agenda. That would be a reverse of the actual, on the ground facts as we have seen them.
Dems gave him plenty of room, and plenty of rope, knowing that he would trip himself up and the hanging is just a matter of showing the very rope to the public, which Trump owns every inch of and all the threads that tie into it.
Lying about the Democrats does Nothing for Rudy or Trump's supporters except make the liars look very foolish and uneducated.
16
@Mr Chang Shih An C'mon, man. Pres Obama never faced impeachment but he was shunned by Republicans from the git-go, who were determined to make him a one-term president and see to it that accomplished nothing.
It has everything to do with Rudy. He crafted the smear campaign against Ms Yovanovitch and now he is attempting to intimidate Pres Zelensky by collaborating with pro-Russian, former KGB Ukrainians who are smearing Zelensky in hopes of getting rid of him, too, and re-establishing their old fruitful corrupt ties enjoyed under Yanukovich. Why would you support this?
1
I'm one of those independents that believed Trump's call was improper and need of censure, but Shiff's release of his political enemies phone records already dwarfs the issue being investigated, so this inquiry has lost me.
I'm certain the MSM will act like nothing wrong was done.
5
@quisp65 Obviously you know little about how investigations are carried out in our criminal injustice system. Your phone records, computer data, bank records, mail, etc. are easily obtained by lawyers & govt when you are under scrutiny in a criminal investigation. In addition, the records of govt officials created in the workplace for conducting the "people's business" are not private, just like your mail, email, computer data & phone records created at your job don't belong to you--it all belongs to the company you work for.
AT&T & Verizon were presented with lawful subpoenas for those records & phone numbers were not publicized. As Hillary discovered when she was being investigated over her emails, it's a bad idea to mix personal with professional on your communications devices, especially on devices that belong to your employer.
18
Chairman Schiff laid out a timeline with evidence, including phone logs. If providing evidence bothers you so much, you were probably never the “independent” you claim to be.
20
@quisp65
Criminal never do like evidence.
2
In this post-truth world, Trump and Giuliani know that having a factual basis for their claims--that Barack Obama was born in Kenya or it was Ukraine, not Russia, who meddled in our election--does not matter a bit. What matters is that their followers want those claims to be true, so they will repeat and repeat and believe and believe.
359
@Alexander Beal
What matters is that Democrats will just sit around watching them attack the Constitution on TV, and barely even mention it, even though they are getting accused of treason by Trump any way.
Trump called the Emoluments Clause "phony," directly attacking the Constitution, while taking payments from a foreign given governments.
Trump says, "the Press is the enemy of the people,"directly attacking the First Amendment, while calling for violence against Journalists.
Trump says he can take away birthright citizenship directly attacking the 14th Amendment,
Trump says he should be "president for life," directly attacking Constitutional term limits.
Trump calls for violence against US citizens without due process, attacking the point of constitutional government.
Trump demands loyalty from pubic servants, who only owe loyalty to We the People and Our Constitution, in a blatant "coup" against We the People, while calling those who protect the Constitution from him "treasonous."
If Trump was a Democrat, Republicans would Impeach him on everything that smells like corruption. They were talking about Impeaching Obama for wearing a brown suit.
But Democrats can't even decide if they will Impeach on an Impeachment referral brought to Congress by Trump's own Justice Department.
Republic Mueller said, Trump could be indicted for obstructing Justice, but "the Constitution has a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president."
21
What I can't grasp is what difference if Russia helped Trump be elected, or if Ukraine did? Either way, her was unable to swing the votes by himself and needed foreign help. How does it change things if a different country did the hacking? The only way it makes a difference is if Russia is behind the Ukraine accusations in order to mask their election meddling. Then it all makes sense.
1
Rudy Giuliani ran for President and got nowhere. Rudy Giuliani campaigned for the job of Secretary of State under Donald Trump and got nowhere. Then Rudy Giuliani got smart. He became the "personal Attorney" of President Trump. As such he feels that he can exert his Power as The President's personal (NOT United States) Attorney to undermine the security of Our Country for his own personal prestige. The fact that he's helping President Trump get impeached is irrelevant to Rudy Giuliani.
271
@alan
Your last sentence is interesting. Giuliani is indeed pushing Trump towards impeachment. So why is he still around? After everything Giuliani's done in Ukraine that the public is now aware of and his unbelievable erratic conduct on television, one would think the Trump Administration would have already pulled the carpet out from under him, to at least cut their losses. Perhaps Rudy's 'very, very good insurance' is allowing him to stay. It points to what Rudy knows about Trump's present, never mind past. Doesn't it?
16
@alan
So now AG Bill Barr is warning Trump about Giuliani's reported "new (manufactured) Ukraine findings" as Rudy desperately fights to stay relevant in the Trump world.
Move over Michael Cohen.
Rudy will be joining you soon.
9
@alan
Rudy Giuliani is what Michael Cohen hoped to be. But he's a hundred times worse. I hope that little factoid is reflected in his eventual sentence.
12
Trump and Giuliani, like characters in a Shakespearean tragedy, will play their parts till their last dying breath.
For New Yorkers, we have lived through the chapters In Giuliani’s life beginning as D.A., Mayor, America’s Mayor, and now this: joined at the hip with Trump in their last act on the big stage fueled by hubris, megalomania, and paranoia. How could we not see these shared seeds of destruction in decades past? Did they both spend too much time in the limelight to quietly exit stage left but instead rise to the highest levels of power?
Their final days will come.
But their joined madness has revealed some truths about who we are rather than who we thought we were. Something has been torn apart and we have turned a corner as a country.
It remains to be seen if we can find our way back to the center.
450
@VA So well said. Thank you.
25
@VA
Indeed!
No doubt this says it best from Shakespeare:
“.....life is but a walking shadow, a player, who struts and
Frets his time on the stage AND THEN, IS HEARD NO MORE......and all his yesterdays have paved his way to dusty death”.
Like every human ever, his time and that of the vile Trump and all his equally vile henchmen will just ultimately vanish.
But Now we must take their places on the stage and declare their evils and set about to right their foul wrongs.
40
@VA Spot on.
A Shakespearean tragedy unfolds before our very eyes.
And a blockbuster movie forthcoming with Christian Bale in the lead role.
12
A sad, sordid tale of an American that has placed himself before his country for his own perceived glory.
But in all Giuliani's dealings what continues to stand out with me is, Marie Yovanovitch. He mostly is responsible for her removal from her Ambassador position, for no other reason than, she was in the way. That is criminal in my mind, and Un-American.
History will treat Giuliani poorly, along with the rest of those involved. The truth will eventually be told.
629
@cherrylog754
Sad indeed.
If we learn nothing else from this Trump/Rudi catastrophe it must be this; Our institutions are nearly helpless in the face of determined and repeated assaults from a small cadre of crypto-fascists.
When this Trump dance is all over, and if the reins of power are ever held by capable people once again there will be required a robust tightening down of the laws governing abuse of power by the executive.
For too long we have relied on vague untested rules, traditions, precedent, and the mere good faith of those holding power.
Nobody saw Trump coming until too late.
49
@Chris Morris
This Jersey girl sure saw Trump coming a million miles away so did a lot of New Yorkers. No one listened to us. Everybody just ignored his past and thought it would neat to have a reality star in the Whitehouse.
18
@cherrylog754 "He mostly is responsible for her removal from her Ambassador position, for no other reason than, she was in the way. That is criminal in my mind, and Un-American. "
Un-American?? What is American? It is one ever encompassing myth of fabricating our exceptionalism from whole cloth!
Destroying people because they are in the way...is the American way! The destruction and marginalization of Native Americans is a perfect example.
7
Absolutely unbelievable article that knits together Giulian's high profile past with his present-day grift and vanity.
These lines are stunning; "Mr. Giuliani compressed the digital gases of the president’s suspicions and wishful theories into what is now the molten core of impeachment."
Donald Trump and Rudolph Giuliani are attention hogs, seamy twins willing to do anything and say anything to claim and aggrandize their accomplishments.
While Michael Cohen worked behind the scenes doing Trump's dirty work before he left the NYC real estate world, Giuliani has created a role for himself where none was needed,tapping the president's insecurities to become his right-hand man in one of the biggest gaslighting operations in US history.
As a Shakesperean tragedy, the Giuliani-Trump Ukraine caper might make great theater. But as a sordid reminder of how our government is operating to serve the sole needs of one man, it's simply repulsive.
798
@ChristineMcM - And Mr. Cohen is in prison, and finally Trump is going to be impeached, but he'll escape removal in the Senate.
Others do Trump's directed dirty work.
42
@ChristineMcM
They and others seem to be going to an awful lot of trouble to accomplish this gaslighting.
Are that many Americans susceptible to this blatant nonsense? The gop always bets on it. And wins every time.
46
@ChristineMcM
Indeed, it is the biggest gaslighting operation in US history.
Yet I beg to differ by not not comparing it to a Shakespeare Tragedy but rather to a Theatre of the Absurd play.
In the latter you have two corrupt, greedy and self-enriching crooks, Donald and Rudy, waiting forever for their Godot.
33
Three ominous words once emanated from the Oval Office, "talk to Rudy", when question arose concerning the Ukraine. trump repeated those words a few more times on the south lawn to reporters as he was departing on Marine One. Giuliani may indeed have led trump down the path toward impeachment, but if trump were to "throw Giuliani under the bus". Giuliani might start to talk in a way that the bus will run over trump.
47
The last description I would ever assign to Donald Trump is charismatic. But Trump seems to have a curious magnetism that magically turns once highly regarded people into sycophantic and corruptible subordinates. To wit: William Barr, Mike Pompeo, and, yes, Rudy Giuliani. It's no surprise that Trump's inner advisers in the oval office are pleading with him to disassociate from Giuliani, who has been reduced to a mob lieutenant. Trump does not have the capacity to distance himself from ultra-loyal Giuliani, though he has coyly intimated that Giuliani has been free-lancing, praising him as a warrior against corruption. But from the inception of his tenure, Trump shattered all traditions by trashing established investigative agencies such as the FBI and CIA in favor of his own people such as Giuliani. So here we are. You can bet the mortgage that Giuliani will return from Ukraine with a boatload of spurious proof that Ukraine, not Russia, was the bad actor in the 2016 election and that Joe and Hunter Biden were knee deep in the corruption. Trump better pray that his loyal lieutenant doesn't testify, because with friends like Giuliani, who needs enemies?
27
@nzierler Your very good comments deserve exploration. For example, Donald J. is not "charismatic," as you say, but his "magnetism" has to rings to it, an inner circle and an outer. The inner circle, I'd suggest, is Donald's own intellectual frailty: he's a no-nothing whose only talent is trolling and re-posting lies. So he can be manipulated toward extremism, because he's punching over his weight. His outer magnetism is what he gives to his public: Emotional channeling . He's a walking propaganda machine that gives out all heat, no light.
2
I differ from you opinion when you state "...magically turns once highly regarded people into sycophantic and corruptible subordinates."
It's been my experience that people don't magically or suddenly become corrupt...rather it's a character flaw that's been brewing within their character throughout adulthood awaiting opportunities.
Same with ethical people, they don't suddenly become that way, it's always been part of their character.
6
@nzierler I disagree with your assessment that Trump takes highly regarded people and turns them into sycophants. While all the names you listed had excellent academic credentials, none of them were highly regarded by anyone who knew what they had done.
Pompeo was viciously and openly racist towards Obama when he was in Congress. Barr was one of the architects of the Iran Contra scandal cover-up/burial of the truth. And Rudi dug himself up from the ashheap of public contempt while mayor by walking around looking sympathetic during the 9/11 aftermath. His subsequent campaign for President put him right back into the ashheap.
The question I always pose when it is suggested that Trump corrupts people is this. If all these people have high morals and have had such distinguished academic and political careers, how is it they are willing to associate with someone like Trump? My answer is their greed for power and money simply overpowers whatever might be remaining of any moral compass they ever had.
3
Rudy, shaking down Trump, and the Donald doesn't even recognize it. You notice Rudy is hanging out in Ukraine, close to the Russian border? That's in the event Rudy needs to dash across and seek asylum. What a movie this will make. I don't watch movies, but I'll definitely be watching this comedy.
12
This is quite a masterful compilation of the Rudy Giuliani escapades, especially since 2016.
The essence of the problem from a public interest viewpoint --his unrestrained access not only to the President, but apparently, to anyone in government whose assistance he wanted. And his ability to turn this into the kind of patronage reserved, I used to think, for emissaries of dictators.
Again, Trump's MO had made it clear that we have a lot to clean up in Washington if we want to avoid a permanently corrupt "ruling" class .
12
So, Giuliani is a sort of informal “acting” deputy Secretary of State, with a few for-profit side gigs. And he craves attention, just like Donald Trump.
11
False statement. The only one responsible for a 72 or 73 year old grown man is trump himself. At his age, if he hasn't attain any discernment about people he deserves to be impeached. Don't blame Guiliani for trump's proclivity to commit crimes that benefit himself and his family.
9
"“Before the 2016 election, Rudy was running around hawking Life Lock on commercials that ran at 2 a.m. on channel 83,” a longtime close aide said."
Probably the funniest sentence in the article. Right after his most recent ex-wife said his hair became got an orange color from being dyed too much. Giuliani was already successful he did not need to dye his hair to go on a job interview. Unless he was trying to attract much younger women?
5
Trump had enlisted Giuliani to do a hatchet job on Biden and the Dems. Official channels (Pompeo) probably declined to help in an official capacity.
If Giuliani had simply done what he is apparently doing now - to develop propaganda videos showing evidence of Biden corruption, with the Fox network behind it Biden's candidacy probably could have been destroyed. It appears Trump was insecure and pressed Giuliani to do more - in effect to get the new president of Ukraine to announce investigations of Biden and the conspiracy theory of Ukraine collusion with the Clinton campaign. It probably looked like a low risk deal. Zelensky was new a vulnerable. The Whisltleblower killed the deal.
Much like Nixon who authorized an unnecessary 2nd rate burglary to clinch his election Trump pressed for an unnecessary bribe attempt with Ukraine's president. This almost worked but for the Whistleblower. Giuliani appears to have been working just to collect dirt that would work on TV but his client was frightened of Biden's poll numbers.
Trump is so insecure and impeachable offenses are 2nd nature to him that for sure he will commit more offenses that outrage most Americans but that may not secure his defeat in 2020. The determining factor may be the economy.
9
Let's just clear up one thing in this article. Giuliani didn't "lead" Trump anywhere.
I say this based upon the fact that Trump previous private lawyer, Michael Cohen, is in jail for crimes associated with Mr. Trump. Paul Manafort, Trumps's former campaign chair, is also in jail for crimes associated with Mr. Trump. Roger Stone, Trump's former campaign advisor, is also in jail for crimes associated with Mr. Trump. Rick Gates, who serves as Trump's campaign official, is also in jail for crimes associated with Mr. Trump. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security advisor, is in jail for crimes associated with Mr. Trump. George Papadopoulos, another former Trump campaign official, is also in jail for crimes associated with Mr. Trump.
Can anyone else see the pattern here? Giuliana hasn't led Mr. Trump anywhere. Like many others before him, he has blindly followed Mr. Trump's orders, and that's why he is in the crosshairs of federal investigators today.
Good luck, Mr. Giuliani. You'll need it.
21
This kind of title is playing to the argument that Trump was a victim, not the culprit. He is POTUS; the buck stops with him.
13
Giuliani claims he is inured
against bus bottoms because he's insured,
And if he becomes "gone,"
his policy lives on,
And Trump's certain doom is assured.
3
“You shall know the Truth, and That Truth, will set you free!”
I’m NOT talking about Rudy or Trump being set FREE. I’m talking about every TRUTH seeking AMERICAN.
In the end, the lies and corruption of our president will come to the service like oil does with water.
8
My reaction to this article? Profound dismay and shame in the way our govt is being abused by Trump and his cronies. Giuliani is not in Ukraine investigating anything; he's not discovering anything. He, Trump, and the depraved Republicans know that Ukraine is not guilty of the crime they are being coerced into confessing to. It's like someone is keeping track of this totally invented storyline, adding new plot points and talking points for those assigned to carry the water on TV that day. We should all be outraged that our elected representatives are deliberately deceiving us with impunity...as long as they don't have to do it under oath.
Dismayed, and angry, that our govt belittles American citizens to this degree. That they depend on "fans" whose exclusive news source is Fox to believe and parrot all that they say. This is cruel manipulation, exploiting people's ignorance and irrational devotion to Trump by telling lies they know these fans won't put through the works of critical thinking. It's not unlike how a pedophile grooms a child, or a con man works a rich widow. It flat out depravity.
I so wish Maria Yovanovitch would sue those who participated in this smear campaign against her. That someone could give the very best of her life to her government only to have her diplomatic career trashed by that govt w/o even a kind, grateful word from coward Pompeo.
I could go on and on expressing this lowdown behavior. But I've made my main points.
28
Excellent reporting.
11
Rudy has declined into a shell of an opportunistic little yes man errand boy. He was mayor during 9/11 and all those first responders are now sick because he didn't provide masks for their safety. That is unforgivable.
12
This is a disease of humans. They get to thinking that they are special and above the common mundane people all around them. They have special gifts and demand special treatment because of those gifts. It is an incurable and debilitating disease. Greed is a large part of it but other of the deadly seven sins are well represented.
It appears to be contagious among the republican cult. A few fortunates seem to be immune and have left the party, a very few others seem to be less affected but then develop the full blown disease such as Nikki Halley. It will be fatal to the cult in the near term.
If you have the desire, you can help them in hospice by voting Democrat in 2020.
63
When is our Czar Father Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin going to give our Siberian President Donald John Trump and his lawyer Rudolph William Louis Giuliani the kind of recognition that they both crave and think that they deserve?
Trump wants a real military parade in Red Square along with immortality by being entombed like Vladimir Lenin and a lady parts grabbing long weekend in one of Putin's richly decked out dachas.
Putin should give Rudy a Hero of the Soviet Union medal at a Kremlin banquet in his honor along with the Gregory Rasputin Adviser and Councilor of the Year Trophy.
No wonder Putin is still so giddy gleefully gloating at the antics of his choice for President of the United States. Smiling and smirking smugly satisfied with the mayhem that he has wrought in the greatest intelligence coup in human history.
'We will hang the capitalists. And they will sell us the rope' Vladimir Lenin
13
Having lived for a number of years in NYC during this man’s mayoralty, I am still bitterly flummoxed why anyone gives him a shred of credit for any past decency he may have had. He was a self-promoting, exploitative shyster who wanted nothing less than a Disneyfied version of his city, and cruelly stomped on the humanity and property ownership of the citizens in order to do it. His final blunt opportunistic showmanship during the 9/11 events was disgusting, and I shuddered to see the public devour his self-promotion hook, line and sinker- especially those outside of the region. His behavior at Trump’s behest is nothing new, and I hope that we’re treated to a beautifully public comeuppance.
90
@Danielle
AND he was instrumental in helping one particular news agency steal property from rightful owners through eminent domain, labeling blocks as "blighted" when they weren't, just so THIS very news agency would build their "new"(at the time) headquarters in Times Square. It should be now called NYTimes Square.
2
@Danielle I never bought his garbage just like I have never bought Donald J Trumps garbage and I have watched him since the early 70s. Both of these men are contemptible and disregard the rule of law for their own aggrandizement.
6
Trump and Giuliani are like cartoon characters and it looks like they will get away with their crimes anyhow.
If the Republicans get a smarter autocrat into the White House our Republic could be toast.
2
@Anne
Unfortunately, he is smarter than you seem to think. He is a master at earning and keeping the support of low-information, aggrieved citizens who have no fundamental understanding of their personal responsibilities in running a democracy.
3
Trump and Giuliani are two peas in a pod and apparently have been since the 1980's. Both men are vainglorious, greedy, crooked blowhards who have both worked to sell out the safety and security of our nation and our elections for personal gain. This will be Giuliani's primary biography, even with his self-aggrandizement in the wake of 9-11. The ignominy of Trump and Giuliani is richly deserved and will hopefully be met with prosecution. The crimes they have committed against our nation are much too grave for the typical lack of accountability that meets individuals of their infamy.
10
You can always tell when the impeachment news is flagging. They trot out Giuliani. Just like Schiff does with his "obstruction" charge. There hasn't been one time Schiff hasn't first charged obstruction, as he did with that witness whom he now won't produce.
2
@AACNY The impeachment is happening. As for the actual topic; Giuliani does a very good job of trotting himself into the spotlight. He’s a cheap carnival barker and nothing more.
Witnesses? Ask yourself why Trump is blocking testimony for everyone in his corrupt administration.
8
When you can’t refute the charges and the evidence, attack the messenger. I wonder what your defense will be when Rudy finally goes to jail, which is clearly going to happen. Oh yeah, then it will be a “deep state” conspiracy against this fine American. Not.
11
@AACNY
Have you heard of the Whistle Blower Law? No, it makes it illegal to reveal the identity of a credible whistle blower. This one was deemed credible. End of discussion.
10
Rudy appears to be the chump that every bully needs.
And to give up a six million dollar salary to be the chump is, well, being a very loyal chump.
The question needs to be asked, given Trump’s propensity to not pay for services rendered (with the exception of a couple of lady’s silence), how is Rudy able to maintain his lifestyle?
But, back to the story. Rudy prided himself on how he eliminated organized crime yet he sides with a corrupt grifter, and is now, allegedly (wink, wink) doing Trump’s dirty work now that Manafort and Cohen are in jail. And perhaps “America’s Mayor” will find himself in the same situation-sharing a jail with Trump’s former henchmen.
28
@Dan - Yes, for Rudy to have given up a job that pays $6m per year means he did the calculus and knew he'd get far more than that unleashed from that law firm and doing dirty work for trump, et al. Watching this country's so-called leadership flush our democracy down the toilet is heartbreaking. Lock. 'Em. Up.
6
This is the kind of in depth reporting I value this publication for, more than a snapshot, but a saga of long duration to learn so much of time and news. Thank you.
36
What an embarrassment Guiliani is, and unfortunately so typical of the people Trump associates with - they deserve each other.
What a massive clean-up job will fall to our next President.
34
@Pat Boice
Assuming Trump and the Republicans allow us to have another president.
6
Rudy appears to be the chump that every bully needs.
And to give up a six million dollar salary to be the chump is, well, being a very loyal chump.
The question needs to be asked, given Trump’s propensity to not pay for services rendered (with the exception of a couple of lady’s silence), how is Rudy able to maintain his lifestyle?
But, back to the story. Rudy prided himself on how he eliminated organized crime yet he sides with a corrupt grifter, and is now, allegedly (wink, wink) doing Trump’s dirty work now that Manafort and Cohen are in jail. And perhaps “America’s Mayor” will find himself in the same situation-sharing a jail with Trump’s former henchmen.
10
I voted for the 1st time in my life in 1993 for Giuliani as Mayor. I was 44, something I am deeply ashamed of. I am ashamed not that I voted for him, he was the right choice at the time, but that I never exercised my civic duty by voting until I was in my 40s. There are truly immoral and despicable people running our government.
Register and vote, it's the only way out of this mess.
27
@Mike
Mike, plenty of us have been 44, nothing to be ashamed of, really. ;-)
3
Giuliani , drunk with greed, money and hyper inflated ego.
The man is a caricature of his former self.
Very sad.
21
“There in no next election! This is it!”
—Rudy Giuliani
He, of course, is right.
Dictators only need to win one election and Trump already won his via Putin’s help.
As a man with no moral compass (cheated on of his 3 ex-wives, one of whom is a first cousin) Rudy and Trump (also cheated with all of his 3 wives) deserve each other.
I am just waiting for the moment when they go at each other’s jugulars as there are no honor among thieves — and both are addicted to the limelight that anyone upstaging them is a perceived moral enemy.
It will be very beautiful to behold.
24
@Opinioned!
The fun part of the circus will be when Trump is dragged kicking and screaming from the WH.
Spectacle at it's funniest. The man has no dignity at the best of times. Watching him greet the new POTUS with bad grace will be fun.
I'm just wondering what lengths he'll go to in order to stay in the spotlight. He won't take anonymity easily.
6
Congratulations, Rudy, you're back in the headlines again. After a brief stint as "America's Mayor", and a rather pathetic also-ran presidential candidate, this time it's as a greedy, publicity seeking traitor to the United States. I don't think there's time for an incarnation as a redeemed hero, so this will be your epitaph.
19
These are two peas in a pod, but Giuliani didn't do the leading.
Trump leads the pack and all else follow, blindly.
12
Rudy Guiliani is a free lawyer for Trump and worth every penny.
20
Thanks Giuliani for taking down John Gotti and now taking down the bigger criminal Donald Trump. Thank you for infiltrating the Trump administration and gaining their trust. Your act on TV has been flawless. Thank you for your service to this country.
7
Only an animal with a deep understanding of subterfuge and a complete lack of morals or conscience could slither around trying to find ways to not just destroy decent individuals like Joe Biden in their quest for personal riches and power, but to tear the fabric of our country and its people to ribbons. An animal who would sell us to Putin.
We've got two of them. Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. And they have each other. If this disgraceful, toxic mess ever gets cleaned up, I hope they share a cell.
13
Rudy Giuliani....Trump’s “unpaid” personal lawyer. Does anyone really believe he is doing this for free? Does anyone believe a man with his debts and appetite for privilege and power is doing this for FREE! Does anyone really believe that the evidence he has locked up in his safe is about the Bidens? Time for an FBI raid and seizure of all the evidence. You just can’t make this stuff up.
18
@Shlyoness
What I *can* believe is that Trump isn’t paying him.
6
Another of Trump's "best people" turns out to be a grifter just like the man who chose him to be his personal attorney. That, plus Giuliani's skill in feeding the clueless POTUS his daily diet of conspiracy theories, was what brought him into favor. Putin couldn't have asked for a better mole who not only endangers Ukraine with his ill-advised "investigations" but also the national security of the United States with his insecure phone calls to the White House.
8
In the "Old Days" Giuliani would be coined a Bagman for Trump.
Giuliani doesn't bring back bags of money but dirty information Trump can use in 2020 election. Who pays Rudy for all this running form country to country................WE DO.
Anyone check his travel expenses, meals and cigars which he loves?
8
@Don Siracusa
Time to shut down this pathetic crew. Tax evasion brought down the Capone syndicate. It should be able to handle this bunch.
3
The daily degradation of the United States of America by Trump and his cronies is mind-boggling. More than I can express, I am thankful for professional and ethical journalism. I could not otherwise imagined this sordid exploitation of our government.
I was able to smile once while reading the article. The mental picture of Parma and Fruman as sea gulls following the USS Trump is unforgettable. Brilliant writing.
84
Rudy joins the long list of corrupt people who seem to have some Kompromat on Trump. He also joins the list of corrupt people in Trump's orbit who are involved in international crime syndicates. But what Rudy has done amounts to nothing less than Conspiracy against the USA. He should never be allowed to step foot in the country again -- unless it's in handcuffs.
55
At last, Jim Dwyer, a clear eyed New Yorker who knows all about the two principal players in this drama, tells us what is really going on. Bravo to you and your supporting team.
36
If this is true, then we owe Giuliani an enormous debt of gratitude. What a sly fox. He was working undercover the whole time, to bring down Trump.
14
My grandfather always said, "Never trust a grown man who wears a pinky ring."
I wonder what he would say about the diamond-encrusted one worn by Giuliani?
I suspect it would be, "I told you not to trust him.
53
Saul Steinberg - many years ago - sketched a famous "Fifth Avenue" cover of the New Yorker.
The sketch was on how New Yorkers view America.
It cartoonized of a typical New Yorker seeing America up to Fifth Avenue very clearly - and then there is this fast empty space beyond till California and the Pacific.
This famous "America's Mayor" has turned the sketch backwards where he appears to see very little beyond himself.
As a Republican, I never cared for this man - especially when he was insisting that post 9/11 - elections should be suspended and he be declared a Mayor for Life.
He is indeed "walking" POTUS into this shamimpeachment.
While we know what will happen with POTUS, he will get reelected.
What needs to happen is someone needs to administer Mr. Giualini the same medicine that he supposedly administered to criminals.
6
@Neil
Sham impeachment?
So Im confused. What part of abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and commission of felonies in clear daylight - indeed, admitting all of this - is a sham?
9
"monthly expenses of $230,000 for six homes and 11 country club memberships. "
WOW
230k/month in expenses alone!
Doing what exactly?
Not even best known heart surgeons can dream of making a third of that sum in one month.
It's a huge leap from a Brooklyn tenement in Bay Ridge to a mansion in Southampton.
And not just one Hamptons mansion.
He have three of them.
Being just a court lawyer will never be enough to even pay for utilities.
He must scheme something big and super-lucrative.
He traveled the world peddling access and lobbying to every despot,cartel, and racket with money to spend.
Well, it's payback time Rudy.
30
@morGan
All those expenses yet he could afford to work for Donald Trump for free.
Yeah, it's a joke.
11
Giuliani is Trump's replacement for Michael Cohen. He covers Trump's criminal activities in Mafia-designed assignments. In that role, Giuliani takes coded commands such as "Will nobody remove this thorn from my side?" Giuliani will try. If Giuliani ever uses his "insurance," he will tell us more about Trump's impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors than Michael Cohen ever dreamed of in his sordid experiences.
21
One word comes to mind: traitor.
Selling our democracy to foreign dictators should be, as the founders stated explicitly in the constitution, punishable by up to the death penalty. There is a good reason they chose this punishment: they realized our democracy was delicate and that the Kings of the world would despise it and plot to undermine it.
Enter stage left: Rudy and Trump, exactly the type of domestic criminals the founders thought would do a foreign government’s bidding, and sought to thwart. The next few months should show us whether we are worthy of their hopes for defending this country.
Too bad we already know the Republican Party is the party of treason. Can the Dems hold?
30
Lev and Igor are "bit players".
They're not alone.
These are all "bit players" from the creepy underbelly of the world (world-wide) of crime.
Now, do the same depth of investigating on Barr, another "bit player" that is also steering this nation into an iceberg.
Thanks for nothing, Republicans.
34
Another misleading story headline; no one "leads" trump anywhere. They walked to the brink arm in arm.
20
@JG, I think of Trump as a pinball, just bouncing around until he reaches the lowest point of the game.
4
Trump can get Bill Barr to issue reports on a lot of ridiculous untrue things. But apparently even Barr has his limits, so Trump is turning to Rudi to issue the latest nonsense report on Ukraine to Congress.
12
Shakespeare well sums up Giuliani's current predicament:
"Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round.
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. "
Brutus - Julius Caesar
15
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
Witches - Macbeth
2
@Bill so true, so true! The Bard had such tremendous insight into human nature 500 years ago, and your excellent comment here telescopes that uncanny vision both back to the time of the Roman kings, and forward again to our current would be king and his minions! Bravo to you!
3
@Bill And Percy Shelley sums up Guilani's ultimate fate:
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
2
Not long after being sworn in as New York's mayor, a major snowstorm arrived with plenty of snow - about 2 feet, as I recall - needing to be cleared from major business thoroughfares like Madison Avenue and Park Avenue.
Rudy sent the plow trucks to Queens, leaving Manhattan in the lurch. Not enough Manhattan votes, I guess.
Later that same year, he refused to allow the Stonewall 25 parade to march down Fifth Avenue, as had long been the route for Pride Sunday in Manhattan. Not enough gay votes, I guess.
So, please forgive me if I never thought of him as "America's Mayor." Remember how he floated the idea of indefinitely extending his mayoral term post 9/11?
And then there was l'affaire Bernard Kerik...
It seems to me that Rudy has always been about settling scores and covering up blunders, less so about good governance. His activities in the Trump administration - including his recent declarations about having "insurance" - seem like classic Rudy to me.
Rudy is the same Rudy he's always been.
60
@Dave T.
Amen.
3
I couldn’t agree with you more!
2
@Dave T. - 'settling scores' - that explains why he and Trump get on so well, they have the same priorities.
I remember when the great mayor sold urban garden plots off to developers. What's past is prologue.
20
Watch Trump and Giuliani become more brazen with each passing day, and tell me there's an alternative to impeachment and conviction.
Watch Republicans fall in line and tell me there's an alternative to challenging every single one of them, everywhere, even where victory is currently impossible.
12
This exceptional saga puts lots of pieces in the puzzle. The enablers Sondland said were, “in the loop" now loom large in the next chapter, and nunes deserves special scrutiny. Sadly, master manipulators like trump and giuliani know how to play the wayward conservatives among us. And, to putin’s delight, he can donate with abandon to the firehouse of support for trump as he stumps for divisive anti-abortion, fossil fuel, racist and anti-immigration causes. Meanwhile election systems and social media platforms are still, if not more, susceptible to russia's cyber attacks. Thankfully Ms. Pelosi has the wind at her back, finally. She has the platform to keep the focus right where it needs to be for 2020, on all those roads leading to putin.
11
Great journalism. Using Trump in the pursuit of power is high risk. Power is a drug. Rudy is hooked and the list of power people that Trump has ruined continues to grow. Yet they line up to serve. That's how addiction works.
30
Giuliani craved the spotlight - and he got it. He's become nothing more than a cartoon character, a sociopath, a "look at ME" - and has undone (or at least diluted) his once credible legacy as a leader. The backroom, secret deals of his era are gone. He should be too.
9
@Patricia
Have no fear. Both Rudy and Trump will be gone from this life within a decade.
Both are overweight and have poor diets. So we'll be spared.
Don jr is champing at the bit but he's just an annoying fly. A swatter will rid us of that pest.
Due to their long acquaintance, Giuliani and Trump both have mountains of dirt on each other. This is a case of Mutually Assured Destruction, where if either party breaks the code of silence, their doomsday machines will be unleashed.
28
Rudy will be Trump's fall guy. Trump will be Rudy's fall guy.
29
@Joe Krystofik We hope.
1
Throughout this article it appears that Giuliani has this un quenchable desire to be the hero of every saga. Multiple sources see traits in the 75 year old Giuliani that existed 40 years ago.
In the twilight of his career, it is clear that Giuliani’s only desire is not simply to make money but to continue to be relevant on the world stage. Whether it is “holding court” at a restaurant table at the Trump Hotel, or craving media attention, Giuliani wants nothing more then to get the pat on the back and the conquering hero’s welcome.
His desperation to remain relevant is sad but understandable.
Unfortunately he looks more and more like a diminished senior citizen who falls prey to any nebulous actor who pays him the slightest bit of attention. With no mention in the article of who is Giuliani’s support system now, it is really appears that his judgment is clouded.
In an effort to hold onto relavance, he looks more like a dancing monkey then a credible elder statesmen.
52
This desire to remain relevant is held by a number of elder white statesmen who will put democracy and truth on the sacrificial altar if it means a few more minutes of power. In the end, Father Time will resolve that issue but not before they totally destroy the integrity of the Republican Party. Pay heed, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, John Kennedy ...
26
Rudy claims he knows an awful lot. Why won’t he share it with lawmakers and the public? His ex wives have a lot to share too about the transformation of Rudy Giuliani from law and order protector to Trump’s henchman (he possibly can’t be unpaid someone’s paying him he has loads of alimony to pay).
18
For Rudy and Trump, their need for an unblinking media spotlight is their self-devouring addiction. The pain of withdrawal is too much to bear and the consequences of the habit: as Neil Young said: "Every junkie's like a setting sun."
36
Giuliani and Trump, along with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, constitute what I call "The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse" of the New York State Republican Party. The New York State GOP, once synonymous with moderates like Nelson Rockefeller and Thomas Dewey (both strong supporters of the SUNY system; indeed Dewey presided over its creation in 1948), has seen its reputation ruined by these four men who have dragged down other New York Republicans with them. Look no further than Chris Collins and Elise Stefanik.
Who could have guessed that the Australian-born Rupert Murdoch would find his political soulmates for life among aggrieved white men born and/or raised in the western regions of Long Island?
56
Led trump? Is this a serious conclusion? Trump is influenced, not lead. He goes after the next shiny object. His goal is more of a vision, not solid. he keeps plugging away, drawing straws thinking the diamond is in there somewhere. And he will not be swayed from this vision. My problem with trump is What is the Vision?
9
He's a caricature of a real leader. His prurient interests have drive him to places and actions where no well-meaning person would tread.
One theory has him unpaid as to reduce a divorce settlement. And Trumpsters call it altruism.
It's OK to have no filter if you're competent and virtuous. This ain't that.
20
Trump led Trump to the brink of impeachment. Just like Manafort and Flynn under instructions from Trump led to the Mueller investigation. Headlines that imply that others can be scapegoated for Trump's nefarious actions are neither true or helpful.
18
Third wife Judy states Rudy craves spotlight for validation. Validation of what specifically ? I witnessed him whence he was SDNY Attorney do a publicity stunt dressed up in an FBI takedown jacket with RayBan Aviators before a business luncheon crowd. He actually pranced in with music blaring like taking a stage at a theatre. His message was worthwhile, fighting the crack epidemic of the mid 1980s. But his act was over the top THIRTY years ago. He and Trump are certainly the two worst poseurs NY has produced. The spawn of not so noble immigrants.
48
With those monthly expenses on club memberships and multiple homes, not to mention multiple ex wives, Giuliani is not getting paid to be Trump's latest "fixer?" Hard to believe.
20
Rudy’s need for attention and the spotlight long ago eclipsed his common sense and morals. It’s just sad.
14
Giuliani is an example of the crooks, liars, thieves and scofflaws Trump said would be the "best people" with which he would staff his administration.
This turned out to be a vile, cynical joke.
Giuliani has no reputation left to save. He deserves to go to prison.
Bill Barr, George Pompeo & numerous others in positions of highest responsibility have all been credibly implicated in the Ukraine scandal. They appear to have violated their oaths to protect & defend the Constitution. They are implicated in putting the national security of the United States at risk. The sworn testimony against these people before the House were from career diplomats who've spent their lives protecting our country - patriots. Trump smeared these people as liars - but all are honorable and believable.
It strains credulity to think Vice President Pence did not know about this scandal in Ukraine. If so, he also is not fit to be in office.
All of these people must resign. They are unfit to serve.
Numerous people in the Nixon administration who committed crimes & violated their oaths were imprisoned. All of these Trump officials deserve to be in prison. Donald Trump most of all.
This enormous conspiracy at the very top of the Trump administration violated the Constitution and endangered our country. These people put political gain and self interest ahead of their sworn oaths to protect this country.
Trump most of all.
When will this nightmare end?
74
I love New York City, even most of the people who live there, but wonder whether the nation would benefit from a long moratorium on any more New Yorkers in the White House. Trump and Giuliani are representative of a decadent, publicity-obsessed, criminal overclass that our nation can do without.
17
Rudy Giuliani is not a nice man. It's not just that he takes ethical shortcuts, his record as a husband is horrible. He happened to be mayor when the unspeakable tragedy of 9-11 occurred and he basked in the spotlight that created. It may have gone to his head. I think it's likely we don't know the extent of his depravity.
In a world where Hunter Biden is, appropriately, criticized for taking advantage of his father's position and power, where does Giuliani's son work? Oh, he has a position in the White House? Something to do with sports?
50
@Betsy S It is plausible that Burisma would have hired Hunter Biden even if his father was not VP if Biden had pursued business in Ukraine after the Maidan revolution. It was a large company entering a world where U.S. / western rules mattered more than post-Soviet connections.
Biden is a Yale law grad who had done work for major companies and had been appointed by Bush to serve on the Amtrak Board in 2006. He was not a lightweight and had highly relevant background to serve on the Burisma board.
12
Tremendous expose of Rudy, and spectacularly written. Metaphors spot on. Excellent piece which draws together all the Giuliani strands. He’s a Greek tragedy. Icarus.
26
Giuliani and Trump (Donald-quack-quack, I like to call him) subscribe to the tactic of announcement effects. Frequent repetition of apocryphal announcements suffices to get a hard core of buy-in; then the effects become felt. Trump’s birther campaign is what got him his first set of hard core supporters—white supremacists. The Richard Murphy example in this article is another case. The announcement is proven false, but the effect lingers on and takes on a life of its own. And the perpetrator shrugs it off saying “This happens all the time. …. Sometimes they turn out to be true. And sometimes they turn out to be wrong.”
14
Subject - verb - object. Giuliani led Trump? It seems to me that Trump enlisted Giuliani to do his dirty work, just as he has enlisted so many others. Those associated with Trump have all followed him into the muck that is his presidency. Let’s get the grammar right: the subject is Trump.
30
with Giuliani , his reach, sadly, has never exceeded his grasp...tripped up by an arrogance that has exceeded his intellect and character. I keep searching for character in Americas' mayor, and it never seems to show up. Had 9/11 never happened, and I sincerely wish this to have been the case, Rudy wouldn't have been revered longer... he would have been reviled sooner.
13
I take issue with this article for not being tagged opinion. Agreed: Rudy Giuliani has become the loud lout willing to do Trump's bidding. But the impeachment experts who testified for the Democrats were blatantly, overtly partisan even to the point one of them took cheap shots mentioning Trump's son. This is a long article delving into too much minutiae only very close associates know or care about. The upshot: how sad that Giuliani has evolved from a brash, bold, courageous (and vain) prosecutor into a lap dog for one of the most unethical, selfish and ill-manned presidents thus far in history.
3
@gmt they were there as experts on impeachment, political persuasions were brought up by Republicans to try to discredit them. What should be of concern is how far Turley’s opinions on impeachment swung in an effort to appear relevant - reminds me of Giuliani.
5
@gmt - Oh please. They mentioned the name Trump gave his son. It was a weak attempt at humor and nothing more.
It's interesting that right wingers are perfectly all right with the naked partisanship displayed by Republicans.
2
@gmt 'cheap shots', interesting comment , considering that we're talking about the 'cheap shot ' artist who sits in the much reduced white house..
2
Alleged, potential corruption is never heroic.
Further, it has been reported that G's alleged actions may be under investigation.
Finally, I hope that the appropriate legal entities investigate any of his actions to determine if he is in violation of one's license to practice law.
44
@Quandry
I don't think RG is even a member of any state bar any more. At any rate, he is not "practicing law." He is just serving as the Resident's personal fixer.
12
Is it possible that Guiliani is even more deluded about himself, his true character and his reputation than trump is?
221
@farhorizons
That's a terrifying thought, but one that might explain his bizarre and ludicrous conduct.
11
@chris Apparently imagined absolute power corrupts just as much as the real thing.
2
@farhorizons - It would seem so - I thought the stuff that came out about his relationship with Bernard Kerik, when Giuliani recommended him to head the Department of Homeland Security, pretty much ended any idea of Giuliani being all ethical and incorruptible and all that. Or maybe it's just that his memory is going.
1
You may recall that djt dispatched a team of lawyers to Hawaii to determine if President Obama was an American citizen. He told us that we were going to be amazed at what his lawyers were finding.
We never got their report.
Now, djt has Rudi flying around, Barr sometimes in tow, and reports that he has heard that they are finding amazing things.
I guess this has probably been his strategy in life. Dispatch lawyers to dig up dirt, real or imagined, on his competitors, judges, government officials, reporters, etc.
It appears that the House will deliver an article or articles of impeachment soon. However, Senator Graham, has announced that he will do his best to short circuit any action by the Senate that might remove djt.
djt has done everything he can with his supporting cast to make himself a dictator who is responsible to no one.
In my favorite movie, "Out of Africa." a man who has debauched his way through all his family's money exclaims, "Money. It was fun."
We are on the verge of being able to exclaim, "Democracy. It was fun."
374
@LGBrown The lawyers sent to Hawaii led to Trump's election. The lawyer to Ukraine will lead to his re-election.
Defies logic, but it works.
3
@LGBrown Trump never dispatched anyone to Hawaii. That was a ruse, like his fake alter-ego public relations personnel who would call newspapers to plant flattering false information about Trump (it was Trump himself making those calls).
18
@LGBrown
Congress needs to pass a law against dispatching teams of lawyers to find dirt on a rival. There are laws governing lobbying, nonprofit giving, campaign contributions. There should be one against teams of lawyers digging up dirt.
4
It’s a sorrowful exercise to imagine how different the world would be if Dubya had just read his briefings over the summer of 2001.
What seemed abundantly obvious to most Americans after the fact is that we could never afford another incurious, “Businessman President”. But here we are, with a large minority of the country eagerly hoping more and more stuff gets messed-up and broken in the hopes that the whole country, indeed the whole world, will one day resemble an average, broken Red State district.
217
@Dudesworth
How different indeed, maybe better if the Supreme Court was not degraded into dragging that particular oaf over the finish line.
Or if President Carter had one more helicopter, or if President Clinton had better judgement when alone.
Or if we had an honest, all paper ballot election.
Sorrowful exercises abound in America. Wasted opportunity galore, that is the real tragedy here.
24
@Dudesworth
And a below average area in Russia.
4
@Dudesworth Trump makes Dubya look good.
9
Our nation, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela. Fossil Fuels are a common denominator. Republican efforts have always been focused around Fossil Fuels. Even JFK stood up to Fossil Fuels.
40
Oil distorts everything. You can have fossil fuel salesmen — w and Cheney — or you can have democracy. You can’t have both.
10
Was Trump really helped by Russia or Ukraine after we know that the Television industry devoted a billion dollars worth of free airtime to his name during his campaign, or that four former federal prosecutors helped him win, or that former prosecutor and FBI Director Mueller declined to indict Trump, or that the "Wall" played a part in it? Or, are they all together?
17
Patrick. My sentiments and thoughts exactly.
2
@PATRICK - I'm going with "D- All of the Above." First, one has to start a rumor (valid or not),or profess some questionable proposal, then ya gotta hear about it; over and over and over again. For example, the dislike of Hillary was not produced in a vacuum. It was beaten into our psyche. Rumor first. Then 'coverage.'
11
They deserve each other.
76
But do we deserve either of them?
13
@Wanda "Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite." Translation:
Every nation gets the government it deserves. Joseph de Maistre,
Correspondance diplomatique, tome 2. Paris : Michel Lévy frères libraires éditeurs, 1860, p.196.
1
This headline and article seem guaranteed to get Trump to kick Giuliani to the curb, as it were. Well done. I can’t think of anyone more deserving to be thrown under the Trump bus.
137
@Ben
By tomorrow, Trump will be saying that he "hardly knows him". Following that announcement within the week we will see Giuliani's defenestration
Unless of course his "insurance policy" as really good, maybe about Trump's ties to Putin.
I don't buy that Trump is simply a "germ phobe". I think he fears someone - from Russia? - may try to poison him.
1
Before the "America's Mayor" label is used one more time, I'd like a story detailing how Giuliani handicapped the command centers for the fire and police departments. His bad decisions cost lives. His crowing afterwards was all the media paid attention to.
Notably, he wanted a third term and was denied it, just a few weeks later. If he'd been so gallant on 9/11, maybe he would have gotten it. Michael Bloomberg took over instead and he got that third term.
105
@PJW Bloomberg got the third term through collusion with the corrupt Democratic City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn, who helped him get around our term limits law. Otherwise Bloomberg would have been out after two terms too.
9
@PJW - Yeah. I'm not a fan of that term applied to him.
3
@Lifelong New Yorker
Fortunately he wasn't, or we would have gotten de Blasio or someone like him sooner. The difference between Giuliani and Bloomberg? Bloomberg's a better man, and was a better mayor.
5
I take issue with the headline. It implies that Trump is an innocent dupe, led like a child down a path of corruption and crime, when all of his life he has been the criminal, leading others to do his bidding. Giuliani is a tragic figure (I don’t sympathize with him, but he is tragic on a Shakespearean level) and there’s so much to unpack in his psyche that it will take decades before psychologists will be able to make sense of it.
109
Kudos to the reporters for this brilliant article.
Giuliani and Trump are such damaged characters. Empty inside, living only for transient bursts of external affirmation. There would be something Shakespearian, Dostoevskian, or Miltonian in their characters if they had more than one dimension. Unfortunately, what you see is what you get.
255
If New York is Gotham? Giuliani is the Joker.
109
@RBR : Actually he more closely resembles "Nosferatu". Really!
Yet if you go to FOX news, Trump is not a crook, but a victim. FOX is doing severe damage to America's democracy.
794
@Joseph B
I have often wondered if Fox news has been compromised by a foreign Government.
It was revealed at the House intelligence hearing that the State department contacted Fox news more than once about their airing false stories which could undermine American security.
The old Soviet Union were mastered of propaganda and false stories.
it seem quite possible Giuliani., Devin Nunes, Lindsey Graham, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican Senator Kennedy, may have all been duped by Russian propaganda and false stories.
The Mueller report revealed the Republican Party was what the Russians felt was the best way to infiltrate into American politics.
Fox News may be unknowingly helping a foreign government.
81
Time to take a look at Sean Hannity of Fox News too. Trump dispatched him to London, to the Ecuadoran Embassy, to chat with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame. Hannity did as bid, returned to report to Trump about Assange, and Trump then proclaimed on Twitter and in interviews that Assange was a very fine fellow, also that Trump “loved WikiLeaks.” Since then Hannity has been eagerly helping Trump spread most of the conspiracy theories the Horowitz Report debunks. Like Giuliani he and Trump have met many times for privately for White House dinners and at Mar-a-Lago. Hannity was also a client of Michael Cohen.
115
@Joseph B
Agreed. Can anyone tell us why propagandizing the American public is legal?
47
This sanctimonious 911 profiteer has found an enabler an kindred spirit in Trump. They should both testify under oath before Congress and the American public. Perhaps they would then understand that equal treatment under the law applies to them too.
135
The 1980's DA Rudy would have relentlessly come after the current day Rudy. How much more could he have derailed from the days he went after the type of people he turned into?
34
@Michael In addition to taking names, Rudy must have been taking notes.
5
@Michael His dad was a mobster (of a low sort). I wonder how tough he really was on crime?
3
Let's get one thing clear: Rudy Giuliani is getting paid. The fact that he ostensibly works uncompensated as president Trump's personal attorney is as absurd a concept as a Trump presidency.
226
@Alan R Brock - Rudy doesn't get paid and my president doesn't take his salary. Where is the "Go Fund Me" to pay both these guys to go away.
7
Seemingly a complex man but in truth not complex at all -- simple really. He has an enormous need for cash to smooth over past transgressions, particularly expensive divorces and an expensive lifestyle, so he'll do anything to gin up the cash he needs, including working "for free" to give him the access he can use to gin up still more cash on related side deals. It's like a Ponzi scheme; you need more, so you do things that generate cash now but will make the situation worse in the future, and continue for more rounds until it all collapses. Looks like Rudy's collapse may be near. Can't come soon enough. Maybe he and the Donald will end up in adjacent cells, and Rudy will hustle cigarettes and tattoos to keep things going.
99
Be vigilant of the role Television plays in the upcoming election in terms of public manipulation. I do believe the fix is in again and it requires the light of day to shine upon the dealings in darkness.
27
Consider the fact that That two Billionaires, both heavily involved in television are running opposite to assure a Television win. That is as it appears.
1
From a global perspective, there are countries/cities rife with fraud, bribery and nepotism, including Venezuela, Russia, Turkey, NYC among too many others to mention. Those countries with very low levels of fraud seems to function clearly on behalf of their citizens' interests. The U. S. needs to follow Nordic models to dig out of their current corrupt weeds.
Of note, what happened when Trump tried to make a 'deal' with Sweden to get ASAP Rocky out of a Swedish jail? Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was flabbergasted as there is no bribery between the judicial system and elected officials in Sweden. Trump has never experienced the clear balance of powers as the democratic Nordic countries experience. He was dumbfounded by the Swedish lack of bribery/deal making.
114
"Mr. Trump was the gaudy, gold-veneered developer who somehow navigated the shoals of organized crime, labor racketeering and official corruption in the New York real estate market of the 1980s,..."
The "somehow" might be clarified if we could see his tax records.
549
@s.chubin Right, but can those tax records of the l980's be legally disclosed ? Difficult enough for the public to see the more recent Trump IRS returns as his savvy tax lawyers bring suit after suit that slog along at snails pace in the Courts. ( Even our beloved SC judge RBG's recent ruling has slowed revelation of Trump's taxes. ) This is troubling to investigators who know the key to unlock the Trump-Giuliani alliance and political malfeasance can be found in financial transactions.
5
@s.chubin - Isn't that about the same time Giuliani was US Attorney, investigating organized crime, official corruption, etc., in NYC?
3
Manafort. Stone. Epstein. Gates. Sater. Parnas. Broidy. Cohen. Papadopoulos. Flynn. Duncan Hunter.
And now Giuliani.
One wonders whether there are ANY Trump associates who aren’t convicted, indicted, or under investigation for felonies.
719
Only those who have not been caught. No honest person could work for the criminal.
41
@Evangelos
Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.
15
@Evangelos Hopefully Kushner is being investigated.
9
This narrative helps tell the story of Giuliani & Trump, though surely the complete story, if ever told, would be far more damning to both men. I'm curious, though, why the Times chose not to name the "writer at The Hill" who helped Giuliani & Trump drum up the fake Ukrainian mess. After all, that "writer" (John Solomon) was pivotal in driving the Ukrainian fabrications into the public dialogue even before Fox News jumped in to assist its friends in the White House. I suppose it's no coincidence that Solomon now works for Fox News. At some point in the future (though now would be good), perhaps some enterprising journalist will tell the story of how Solomon and The Hill became such an important part of the Giuliani & Trump scandal involving the unfortunate and reluctant leaders in Ukraine.
288
"Prominent" in national affairs does not describe the former "America's mayor". "Reprehensible, corrupt and self-serving" seem a better fit.
585
@Tom Miller
Right and they make a great couple (trump and giuliani ), birds of a feather. Just who is paying for his jaunts back and forth to the Ukraine?
16
Giuliani says “when this is over I’ll be a hero” regarding his dealings with the Trump scandals.
No, Rudy’s recognition as a hero died when he grew thick with Donald Trump during the Trump presidency. If he had only just been the post 9/11 mayor in our minds forever. What a legacy that would have been.
People who are not New Yorkers, such as myself, look at Giuliani as a stooge, a puppet, a joke, a criminal now.
We don’t feel sorry for him, we surely don’t pity him, we don’t look up to him anymore at all. Actually when we see his pictures, or hear his voice on TV he sickens us. He’s a reminder of everything we don’t want to see or hear, he’s the epitome of corruption, greed, sneakiness, and lies. All this for Donald Trump? No, not all.
Mostly Giuliani is just this sleazy dangerous reckless guy who gives law a bad flavor, who gives honesty the height of disrespect.
He has let down New Yorkers and everyone, taking away in our minds the reverence of memories after 9/11 when he seemed to lead us, help us, be there for us. Now we look at him and just see an old, corrupt crook that moves around by strings of dark puppetry for dollars, selfishness, and nothing else. Guess he never was about us at all, was he?
451
@MIMA - Those memories of post 9/11 Rudy are fraudulent, built on the list of adj.s you cite.
25
@MIMA
"People who are not New Yorkers, such as myself, look at Giuliani as a stooge, a puppet, a joke, a criminal now."
People who are New Yorkers as well. I used to admire Giuliani, when he was U.S. Attorney, and during his first few years as Mayor. Not for well over 20 years now.
24
@MIMA
Giuliani was a lame-duck mayor who was increasingly unpopular in NYC when 9/11 occurred. 9/11 launched him from the dustbin of history he would have been occupying had that not occurred. A shameless huckster. People who are honest and ethical don't need to say they are repeatedly. Period.
10
Trump seeks others of a similar disposition to corrupt use of power. In Rudy Giuliani, he has chosen well, but not wisely. Rudy’s impending downfall will expose much. Greed, for lack of a better word, is bad. And that, folks, is the mantra of Trump Inc. A criminal enterprise for the ages.
147
Can someone please explain to me why when the President is investigating corruption it’s digging dirt or soliciting a foreign govt. to interfere in our elections but when the FBI and the Democratic Party did it it’s “Opposition Research”. President Trump’s campaign was spied on and was infiltrated with informants that were Russian moles acting for the FBI. Now he is trying to find out what happened and low and behold Joe Biden is caught in the middle. But, we hear “debunked” or Joe got the guy fired because he wasn’t investigating a company Hunter Biden was involved with, give me break.
2
There is an article in this week’s Magazine section that you might want to read for some perspective on the alternate reality business conducted on right wing media. Here’s a link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/magazine/alex-jones-infowars.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
7
Rather than repeating Republican talking points, read or watch the testimonies from the impeachment hearings. It doesn’t take any second commentary to understand what happened.
Trump’s investigation of “corruption” was for his own personal gain, i.e. helping himself get re-elected in 2020.
If investigating corruption really was Trump’s and Guliani’s goal, then why was Marie Yovanovich, who as ambassador to Ukraine, focused on weeding out corruption in Ukraine, removed with the help of Guliani?
4
Looks like somebody needs to be reading the IG report....
3
When the mini-series about this era is made, hands up all those who want to see Giuliani played by Martin Scorsese.
p.
3
@Jerry and Peter Do you mean by De Niro or ...? Scorsese is a director.
3
No, Chris - I'm well aware that Scorsese is a director and that he is not Robert De Niro. However, he HAS acted - see, for example, 'Taxi Driver' and 'The Muse', both of which suggest that he might be a terrific Giuliani.
p.
@Jerry and Peter, how about John Malkovich or Christopher Walken?
Now I'm really concerned. We have all carefully followed the stories here for years and have been whipped up into a froth of anger and hostility, I believe as a diversion from the long term strategies employed by Trump and his power house. Giuliani we all know from his flamboyant decades in New York, but your article gives me pause to consider just how deep this is.
From the beginnings of Trump and the Russia investigation, I was always left mouth agape at the fact that Mueller declined to indict. Sure it was policy, but why?
Manafort is a key. It wasn't that Ukraine was behind the hacking and election interference. There is a cozy relationship with Russia from the Moscow Trump Tower negotiations with a Ukrainian Mayor to yet another Television actor becoming a President in Ukraine. And what of Fruman who runs a company catering to the wealthy? Isn't that how you influence a nation, through those that own it?
Timelines are tells; Manafort/Ukraine, Trump/Putin, Zelensky/Ukraine, Giuliani/Trump, Giuliani contacting Manafort attorney a couple of months ago. Giuliani holding private talks with Venezuelan Oligarch in Spain. Russia with a foothold in Venezuela. Giuliani flew to Ukraine last week for private meetings with Ukrainians.
I would venture to claim that the Republicans have forsaken our freedom and democracy in the interest of what former CIA Director and President George H. Bush called; "The New World Order" controlled by military's. Is it world Fascism?
29
Need to differentiate between Zelensky supporting Ukrainians who are anti-corrosion and those who support Putin, Russia and all the corruption.
1
Patrick -
Re: “I was always left mouth agape at the fact the Mueller declined to indict. Sure it was policy, but why?
Prosecutors should always be bound by the law, otherwise you get corrupt prosecutors, such as Ukraine had. Law is what the legislature writes, as interpreted by the courts. But where does the prosecutor go to find out what the current interpretation of the law is? The Department of Justice has lawyers who are supposed to be specialists in the laws that cover legal situations, such as prosecuting people. With the ruling that a President may not be indicted, if Mueller had tried to put together indictments of the President, Trump would have gotten something he wanted, the firing of Robert Mueller, for failing to follow existing policy, before any report was made. Filing of the report with the AG is the last step in the process laid out for special councils. That report is then given to Congress, after the AG redacts any matters that are under privilege, such as ongoing investigations or Grand Jury deliberations.
Mueller wrote his report in such a way as to lay out for Congress a roadmap to Articles of Impeachment on Obstruction of Justice of Mueller’s investigation by the President. Any indictments made by Mueller were given to regular prosecutors in the Department of Justice to pursue. And with Barr as AG, those indictments would have gone nowhere because of that policy.
2
This all goes back to New York in the 1980's and the television industry.
Former Mayor Giuliani was an early member of the Trump campaign along with Governor Christie and Senator Sessions, all former federal prosecutors. I believe Sessions was working on behalf of Congressional Republicans. I believe Trump was appointed President because of his flamboyance, connection to Television that devoted a Billion dollars worth of free airtime during his campaign, he was educated in a Military School during his formative years, his close connections to "The Wall Street" crowd, his affinity to seek to please everyone, and his salesmanship.
Trump employed what looks like professional psychological tools to hold an audience in awe struck attention day to day, with a resulting public confusion that has veiled the long term strategy of the party.
All connections seem to emerge from Ukraine, but I believe as a diversion or go between.
The Television industry spans continents from the Sochi Olympics to the International elections. It adds new meaning to the term "Networking" and who but Giuliani would know how it worked better?
I saw a big red flag when Television stories appeared. Television is the common denominator. From the Sochi Olympics to the Trump appointment to the Actor Zelensky now at the helm of Ukraine and his meeting occurring today with Putin, it appears the fix is in once again.
Giuliani's meeting with the Venezuelan Oligarch indicates much danger to us.
8
@PATRICK, Alexander Hamilton warned of a leader like Trump long ago:
When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
4