Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani
107th Mayor of New York City
In office January 1, 1994 – December 31, 2001
Preceded by	David Dinkins
Succeeded by	Michael Bloomberg
Personal details
Born	(1944-05-28) May 28, 1944 Template:Country data USA-NY Brooklyn, New York
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Regina Peruggi (1968–1982) (divorced/annulled) Donna Hanover (1984–2002) (divorced) Judith Nathan (2003–Present)
Alma mater	Manhattan College

Rudolph William Louis Giuliani III (born May 28, 1944) is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from the state of New York. Formerly Mayor of New York City Giuliani is currently seeking the Republican nomination for President.

Overview

A Democrat and Independent in the 1970s, and a Republican from the 1980s onward, Giuliani served in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, eventually becoming U.S. Attorney. Giuliani later served two terms as Mayor of New York City (1994–2001). He was credited by some with initiating improvements in the city's quality of life and with a reduction in crime. Others, however, criticized him as divisive and authoritarian and disputed his role in reducing crime. Giuliani gained national attention during and after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2001 Time magazine named him "Person of the Year" and he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. His high media profile in the days following the attacks led supporters to nickname him "America's Mayor."

After leaving office as mayor, Giuliani has founded Giuliani Partners, a security consulting business, acquired Giuliani Capital Advisors (later sold), an investment banking firm, and joined the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm, which changed its name when he became a partner. In February 2007 Giuliani filed a statement of candidacy for the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential campaign. Most polls in early 2007 showed him as the leading candidate for the nomination. If elected he would be the first former mayor to be elected president without serving in a higher office, the first pro-choice Republican President, and the first Italian-American president.

Early life and education

Rudolph Giuliani was born in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of working-class parents Harold Angel Giuliani and Helen C. D'Avanzo, both children of Italian immigrants The family was Roman Catholic and its extended members included police officers, firefighters, and criminals. Harold Giuliani had trouble holding a job and had been convicted of felony assault and robbery and served time in Sing Sing; after his release he served as a Mafia enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo, who ran an organized crime operation involved in loan sharking and gambling at a restaurant in Brooklyn.

In 1951, when Rudy Giuliani was seven, his family moved from Brooklyn to Garden City South on Long Island. There he attended a local Catholic school, St. Anne's. Later, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, graduating in 1961. He had an 85 average there, graduated 130th out of 378 students in his class, and received SAT scores of 569 verbal and 504 math.

Giuliani went on to Manhattan College in Riverdale, Bronx, where he majored in political science with a minor in philosophy,; there he considering becoming a Catholic priest. He was elected president of his class in his sophomore year, but lost the same election in his junior year. He joined the Phi Rho Pi fraternity, and was active in shaping its direction. He graduated in 1965.

Giuliani eventually decided to forego the priesthood, instead attending New York University School of Law in Manhattan, where he made law review and graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctor in 1968.

Law clerk

Upon graduation, Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd MacMahon, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War. He received a student deferment while at Manhattan College and another while at NYU Law. Upon graduation from NYU Law in 1968, he was classified as 1-A, available for military service. He applied for a deferment but was rejected. In 1969, MacMahon wrote a letter to Giuliani's draft board, asking that he be reclassified as 2-A, civilian occupation deferment, because Giuliani, who was a law clerk for MacMahon, was an essential employee. The deferment was granted. In 1970, Giuliani received a high draft lottery number; he was not called up for service although by then he had been reclassified 1-A.

Public prosecutor and private practice

In 1970, Giuliani joined the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

In 1973, he was named Chief of the Narcotics Unit and was eventually appointed United States Attorney. In 1975, Giuliani was recruited to Washington, D.C. during the Ford administration, where he was named Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Harold "Ace" Tyler. His first high-profile prosecution was of U.S. Representative Bertram L. Podell (NY-13), who was convicted of corruption.

From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter Administration, Giuliani practiced law at the Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler law firm, as chief of staff to his previous DC boss, Ace Tyler. Tyler later became critical of Giuliani's turn as a prosecutor, calling his tactics "overkill".

In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General in the Reagan administration, the third-highest position in the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised the U.S. Attorney Offices' federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the United States Marshals Service.

In a well-publicized 1982 case, Giuliani testified in defense of the federal government's "detention posture" regarding the internment of over 2,000 Haitian asylum-seekers who had entered the country illegally. The U.S. government disputed the assertion that most of the detainees had fled their country due to political persecution, alleging instead that they were "economic migrants." In defense of the government's position, Giuliani stated at one point that political repression under President Jean-Claude Duvalier (the infamous "Baby Doc") no longer existed. After meeting personally with Duvalier, Giuliani testified that "political repression, at least in general, does not exist" in Haiti under Duvalier's regime.

In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was in this position that he first gained national prominence by prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, resulting in the convictions of Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken for insider trading. He also spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, combat organized crime, break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute white-collar criminals. He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions and 25 reversals. As a federal prosecutor, Giuliani was credited with bringing the "perp walk," parading of suspects in front of the previously alerted media, into common use as a prosecutorial tool. After Giuliani "patented the perp walk", the tool was used by increasing numbers of prosecutors nationwide.

Critics disparaged Giuliani, claiming he arranged public arrests of people, then dropped charges for lack of evidence on high-profile cases rather than going to trial. In a few cases, his public arrests of alleged white-collar criminals at their workplaces, with charges later dropped or lessened, irreparably damaged their reputations. Giuliani's high-profile raid of the Princeton/Newport firm ended with the defendants having their cases overturned on appeal on the grounds that what they had been convicted of were not crimes.

Marc Rich, Pincus Green case

It was in 1983 that Giuliani indicted financiers Marc Rich and Pincus Green on charges of tax evasion and making illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis, in one of the first cases in which the RICO Act was employed in a non-organized crime case. Rich and Green fled the United States to avoid prosecution; both were eventually pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.

Mafia Commission trial

File:Tsalerno.jpg

Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, labelled head of the Genovese crime family, was convicted and sentenced to 100 years in prison after Giuliani indicted him.

In the Mafia Commission Trial (February 25, 1985–November 19, 1986), Giuliani indicted eleven organized crime figures, including the heads of New York's so-called "Five Families", under the RICO Act on charges including extortion, labor racketeering, and murder for hire. Time magazine called this "Case of Cases" possibly "the most significant assault on the infrastructure of organized crime since the high command of the Chicago Mafia was swept away in 1943", and quoted Giuliani's stated intention: "Our approach...is to wipe out the five families."

The inital defendants included:

• Paul "Big Paul" Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family
• Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, convicted as head of the Genovese crime family
• Carmine "Junior" Persico, head of the Colombo Family
• Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo, head of the Lucchese crime family
• Philip "Rusty" Rastelli, head of the Bonanno family,

and six subordinates. Eight defendants were found guilty on all counts and subsequently sentenced on January 13, 1987 to hundreds of years of prison time.

Boesky, Milken trials

Ivan Boesky was a Wall Street arbitrageur who had amassed a fortune of about US $200 million by betting on corporate takeovers. He was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for making investments based on tips received from corporate insiders. These stock acquisitions were sometimes brazen, with massive purchases occurring only a few days before a corporation announced a takeover.

Although insider trading of this kind was illegal, laws prohibiting it were rarely enforced until Boesky was prosecuted. Boesky cooperated with the SEC and informed on several of his insiders, including junk bond trader Michael Milken:

"Boesky admitted to numerous offenses and then turned state's evidence, primarily against Milken. He received a 3 1/2 year prison sentence and $100 million fine after admitting to the charges and reached a plea bargain with Rudy Giuliani...[who would] draw criticism because Ivan was allowed to unload his holdings before his indictment was officially announced, realizing profits from it before being convicted. Others considered the sentence and fine as being too light. But Giuliani and company was [sic] after a much bigger fish, namely Milken."

In 1989, Giuliani charged Milken under the RICO Act with 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. In a highly-publicized case, Milken was indicted by a federal grand jury, and after a plea bargain, pled guilty to six lesser securities and reporting violations.

He paid a total of $900 million in fines and settlements relating primarily to civil lawsuits and was banned for life from the securities industry.

Mayoral campaigns, 1989, 1993, 1997

Giuliani was U.S. Attorney until January 1989, resigning as the Reagan administration ended. He garnered criticism until he left office for his zealous handling of cases and was accused of prosecuting cases for political ambitions. He joined the law firm White & Case in New York City as a partner. He remained with White & Case until May 1990, when he joined the law firm Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky, also in New York City.

Giuliani started his political life as a Democrat, admiring the Kennedy family, working as a party committee person on Long Island in the mid-1960s, volunteering for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968, and voting for George McGovern for president in 1972. In 1975 he switched his party registration from Democratic to Independent. On December 8, 1980, one month after the election of Ronald Reagan brought Republicans back to power in Washington, he switched his party affiliation from Independent to Republican. Giuliani later said the switches were because he found Democratic policies "naïve", and that "by the time I moved to Washington, the Republicans had come to make more sense to me." Others suggested that the switches were made in order to get positions in the Justice Department. Giuliani's mother maintained in 1988 that, "He only became a Republican after he began to get all these jobs from them. He's definitely not a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn't. He still feels very sorry for the poor."

1989 campaign and defeat

Giuliani first ran for New York City Mayor in 1989, attempting to unseat three-term incumbent Ed Koch. He won the September 1989 Republican Party primary election against business magnate Ronald Lauder, in a campaign marked by claims that Giuliani was not a true Republican and by an acrimonious debate.

In the general election, Giuliani ran as the fusion candidate of both the Republican and New York Liberal Party. Koch, meanwhile, had been upset in the Democratic primary by Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins. The Conservative Party of New York, which had often co-lined the Republican party candidate, withheld support from Giuliani and ran Lauder instead. During two televised debates, Giuliani framed himself as an agent of change, saying that "I'm the reformer," that "If we keep going merrily along, this city's going down," and that electing Dinkins would represent "more of the same, more of the rotten politics that have been dragging us down." Giuliani also accused Dinkins of not having paid his taxes many years prior and of several other ethical misteps, in particular a stock transfer to his son. Dinkins said the tax matter had been fully paid off, denied other wrongdoing, and said that "what we need is a mayor, not a prosecutor," and that Giuliani refused to say "the R-word - he doesn't like to admit he's a Republican." Dinkins won the endorsements of three of the four daily New York newspapers, while Giulani won approval from the New York Post.

In the end, Giuliani lost to Dinkins by 47,080 votes out of 1,899,845 votes cast, in the closest election in city history.

Afterwards, Giuliani partially blamed New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato for the loss, along with misleading poll results (which had Dinkins ahead by double digits late in the race) leading to hampered fundraising. D'Amato, a Republican, had not supported Giuliani in the race and had sponsored Lauder in the primary. D'Amato had a falling-out with Giuliani from two years earlier, when Giuliani attempted to choose his successor as US attorney, a privilege usually reserved for Senators.

1993 campaign and election

In 1993, Giuliani again ran for mayor. Once again, Giuliani also ran on the Liberal Party line but not the Conservative Party line, which ran activist George Marlin. The principal issues of the election of 1993 were crime and taxes. Giuliani also campaigned on what he perceived to be the unchecked expansion of the city's budget and the lack of managerial competence of incumbent David Dinkins. While Dinkins had frequently and eloquently voiced his affection for New York City diversity while in office, his tenure bore witness to anti-Semitic rioting in Crown Heights and an Al Sharpton-led black boycott of Korean businesses in Brooklyn.

Giuliani focused on what he described as a breakdown of social and political order that Dinkins had been either unwilling or unable to address effectively. In addition, the city was suffering from a spike in unemployment associated with the nationwide recession, with local unemployment rates going from 6.7% in 1989 to 11.1% in 1992. There was also a public perception that crime was increasing, although in fact the crime rate in most categories had decreased during the Dinkins administration; for example, the per-capita murder rate had peaked and then begun to decline under Dinkins, and rapes decreased in each year of his term. The perception of increased crime contrasted with Dinkins' appeal to the "gorgeous mosaic" of New York ethnic diversity.

Giuliani promised to focus the police department on shutting down petty crimes and nuisances as a way of restoring the quality of life: "It's the street tax paid to drunk and drug-ridden panhandlers. It's the squeegee men shaking down the motorist waiting at a light. It's the trash storms, the swirling mass of garbage left by peddlers and panhandlers, and open-air drug bazaars on unclean streets."

Dinkins and Giuliani never debated during the campaign, never coming to terms with how to approach a debate: Dinkins wanted to include Conservative Party candidate Marlin in any debate, while Giuliani wanted to go up against Dinkins one-on-one. Giuliani later signed legislation (which he originally did not support) which required candidates who receive public financing, as both Dinkins and Giuliani had in 1993, to debate. Dinkins was endorsed by The New York Times and Newsday, while Giuliani was endorsed by the New York Post and, in a key switch from 1989, the New York Daily News.

In the end Giuliani won by a margin of 53,367 votes, with 49.25% of the electorate to the incumbent's 46.42%. He became the first Republican elected Mayor of New York City since John Lindsay in 1965.

1997 campaign and re-election

Giuliani's opponent in 1997 was Democratic Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, who had beaten Al Sharpton in the September 9, 1997 Democratic primary. The results of the Democratic primary had been contested in court by Sharpton, who argued that he qualified for a run-off election with Messinger, Sharpton waited until October to endorse Messinger against Giuliani, and it was perceived by some as tepid .

In the general election, once again Giuliani also had the Liberal Party but not Conservative Party listing. Giulani ran an aggressive campaign, parlaying his image as a tough leader who had cleaned up the city. Giuliani's popularity was at its highest point to date, with a late October 1997 Quinnipiac University poll showing him as having a 68% approval rating; 70% of New Yorkers were satisfied with life in the city and 64% said things were better in the city compared to four years previously.

Throughout the campaign he was well ahead in the polls and had a strong fund-raising advantage over Messinger. On her part, Messinger lost the support of several usually Democratic constituencies, including gay organizations and large labor unions. All four daily New York newspapers — The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Newsday — endorsed Giuliani over Messinger. Two televised debates were held, but Messinger was unable to get traction in highlighting that Giuliani was interested in higher office and might not serve out a full second term.

In the end, Giuliani won 59% of the vote to Messinger's 41%, and became the first Republican to win a second term as mayor since Fiorello H. LaGuardia in 1941. Voter turnout was the lowest in 12 years, with 38% of registered voters casting ballots. The margin of victory was not quite as large as pre-election polls had predicted; analysis of the vote showed that Giuliani made modest gains in his share of the African American vote (20% compared to 5% in 1993, while benefitting from lower turnout overall) and Hispanic vote (43% from 37%) while maintaining his solid base of white and Jewish voters from 1993.

In his acceptance speech, Giuliani acknowledged the image of divisiveness he had acquired during his first term and vowed to correct it: "Whether you voted for me or against me, whether you voted or didn't vote, I'm your Mayor, this is your administration. We have to do a better job of serving all of you. We have to reach out to all of you. And if we haven't, I apologize. I'm sorry and it is my personal commitment that we will try, endlessly and tirelessly, to bring all of you into the kind of success and optimism we have in this room."

Mayoralty

Main article: Mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani served as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2002.

Run for United States Senate, 2000

Main article: New York United States Senate election, 2000

Due to term limits Giuliani could not run for a third term as Mayor. In November 1998, long-serving Democratic New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan retired. Giuliani immediately indicated an interest in running for the seat, and due to his high profile and visibility he was supported by the state Republican Party, even though Giuliani had irritated many by endorsing incumbent Democrat Governor Mario Cuomo over Republican George Pataki in 1994. Giuliani's entrance led to Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel and others recruiting then-U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to combat his star power.

In April 1999, Giuliani formed an exploratory committee in connection with the run. However, on May 19, 2000, before the Republican primary, which he was expected to win, he withdrew his candidacy because of prostate cancer, the Farmersville Garbage Scandal, which significantly reduced his support in his core upstate counties, and the fallout from his affair and messy divorce from his wife Donna Hanover. During the ill-fated campaign, Giuliani was forced to confess to his marital infidelity and, in the process, lost a further significant base of electoral support. New York Congressman Rick Lazio replaced Giuliani as the Republican nominee. He ran significantly ahead of U.S. Presidential candidate George W. Bush's performance in New York, but lost to Clinton by a wider-than-expected 12-point margin.

September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks

Donald Rumsfeld and Rudy Giuliani at the site of the World Trade Center, on November 14, 2001.

At the scene

Giuliani was highly visible in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. After the attacks, Giuliani coordinated the response of various city departments while organizing the support of state and federal authorities for the World Trade Center site, for city-wide anti-terrorist measures, and for restoration of destroyed infrastructure. He made frequent appearances on radio and television on September 11 and afterwards — for example, to indicate that tunnels would be closed as a precautionary measure, and that there was no reason to believe that the dispersion of chemical or biological weaponry into the air was a factor in the attack.

When Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal suggested that the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause", Giuliani asserted,

There is no moral equivalent for this [terrorist] act. There is no justification for it... And one of the reasons I think this happened is because people were engaged in moral equivalency in not understanding the difference between liberal democracies like the United States, like Israel, and terrorist states and those who condone terrorism. So I think not only are those statements wrong, they're part of the problem.

Giuliani subsequently rejected the prince's $10 million donation to disaster relief in the aftermath of the attack.

"America's Mayor"

In the wake of the attacks, Giuliani was hailed by many for his leadership during the crisis. When polled just six weeks after the attack Giuliani received a 79% approval rating among New York City voters, a dramatic increase over the 36% rating he had received a year earlier — 7 years into his administration.

In his public statements, Giuliani mirrored the emotions of New Yorkers after the September 11 attacks: shock, sadness, anger, resolution to rebuild, and the desire for justice to be done to those responsible. "Tomorrow New York is going to be here", he said. "And we're going to rebuild, and we're going to be stronger than we were before...I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world, that terrorism can't stop us." Giuliani was widely praised by some for his close involvement with the rescue and recovery efforts, but others, including many many police, rescue workers, and families of WTC victims argue that "Giuliani has exaggerated the role he played after the terrorist attacks, casting himself as a hero for political gain."

As an avid and public fan of the New York Yankees, who won four World Series Championships during his time as mayor, Giuliani was frequently sighted at Yankee games, often accompanied by his son. On September 21, 2001, the first game was played in New York City after the attacks, with the New York Mets at home facing the Atlanta Braves. Despite his being a Yankee fan, the crowd cheered for him and for his leadership over the preceding days.

The term "America's Mayor", now in common usage among Giuliani supporters, seems to have been coined by Oprah Winfrey at a 9/11 memorial service held at Yankee Stadium on September 23, 2001.

2001 Mayoral election controversy

The 9/11 attack occurred on the scheduled date of the mayoral primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates to succeed Giuliani. The primary was immediately delayed two weeks to September 25. During this period, Giuliani sought an unprecedented three-month emergency extension of his term, from its scheduled expiration on January 1 to April 1, due to the circumstances of the emergency besetting the city. He threatened to challenge the law imposing term limits on elected New York City officials and run for another full four-year term, if the primary candidates did not consent to permit the extension of his mayoralty.

Advocates for the extension contended that Giuliani was needed to manage the initial requests for funds from Albany and Washington, speed up recovery, and slow down the exodus of jobs from lower Manhattan to outside New York City. Opponents viewed the extension as an unprecedented power grab and as a means for Giuliani to profit politically from the sudden, international prominence of the role of New York City Mayor. Voices were also countering the refrain that it was the mayor who had pulled the city together. "You didn't bring us together, our pain brought us together and our decency brought us together. We would have come together if Bozo was the mayor", said civil-rights activist Al Sharpton, in a statement largely supported by Fernando Ferrer, one of three main candidates for the mayoralty at the end of 2001. "He was a power-hungry person", Sharpton also said.

Although a provision for emergency extensions is written into the New York State Constitution (Article 3 Section 25), in the end leaders in the State Assembly and Senate indicated that they did not believe the extension was necessary. The election proceeded as scheduled, and the winning candiate, the Giuliani-endorsed Republican Michael Bloomberg, took office on January 1, 2002 per normal custom.

Time Person of the Year

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Rudy Giuliani, 2001 Time Person of the Year.

On December 24, 2001, Time magazine named Giuliani its Person of the Year for 2001. Time observed that, prior to 9/11, the public image of Giuliani had been that of a rigid, self-righteous, ambitious politician. After 9/11, and perhaps owing also to his bout with prostate cancer, his public image had been reformed to that of a man who could be counted on to unite a city in the midst of its greatest crisis. Thus historian Vincent J. Cannato concluded in September 2006, "With time, Giuliani's legacy will be based on more than just 9/11. He left a city immeasurably better off — safer, more prosperous, more confident — than the one he had inherited eight years earlier, even with the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center at its heart. Debates about his accomplishments will continue, but the significance of his mayoralty is hard to deny."

Criticism for lack of preparedness before the 9/11 attacks

In September 2006, Village Voice writer Wayne Barrett and senior producer for CBSNews.com, Dan Collins, published The Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, one of the strongest reassessments of Giuliani's role in the events of 9/11. The book highlights his decision to locate the Office of Emergency Management headquarters (long-identified as a target for a terrorist attack) on the 23rd floor inside the 7 World Trade Center building, a decision that had been criticized at the time in light of the previous terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993.

The Office of Emergency Management was created to coordinate efforts between police and firefighters, but with the distraction of evacuating its headquarters, it was not able to conduct these efforts properly.

Large tanks of diesel fuel were placed in 7 World Trade to power the command center, and this fuel was later deemed responsible for the intense fire that caused that building to collapse hours after the Twin Towers.In May 2007, Giuliani put responsibility for selecting the location on Jerome M. Hauer, New York City’s first emergency management director who had been appointed by Giuliani himself and had served under Giuliani for five years at the time of the attack; Hauer has taken exception to that account in interviews and has provided New York Magazine with a memo demonstrating that he recommended a location in Brooklyn but was overruled by Giuliani. The February 1996 memo read, "The [Brooklyn] building is secure and not as visible a target as buildings in Lower Manhattan."

Also criticized was Giuliani's focus on personal projects and turf wars rather than vital precautions for the city, and his role in communications failures (which may have been the result of patronage deals inside City Hall). Kirkus Reviews stated, "Giuliani may not have been directly responsible for all those woes, but they happened on his watch".

The 9/11 Commission noted in its report that lack of preparedness could have led to the deaths of first responders at the scene of the attacks. The Commission noted that the radios in use by the fire department were the same radios which had been criticized for thier ineffectiveness following the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Giuliani testified to the Commission, where some family members of responders who had died in the attacks appeared to protest his statements. A book later published by Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, revealed that the Commission had not pursued a tough enough line of questioning with Giuliani when he appeared before the Commission, because its members were afraid of public outcry. Family members had interrupted the proceedings, demanding an explanation from Giuliani for the lack of working radios. Some were removed from the hearing. The Commission had experienced criticism the morning of Giuliani's testimony for allegedly implying that police and firefighters had not done their jobs properly with their hard questions directed to some of Giuliani's staff the previous day. Commission member John Lehman had said that New York City's disaster planning was "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city." The morning of Giuliani's testimony, the New York Post ran a picture of a New York firefighter with the headline "Insult" in response to Lehman's statement.

Some family members of 9/11 victims have openly criticized Giuliani for the significant communication failures that occurred on that day, believing that the lack of working walkie-talkies put the lives of first responders in significant danger. They say that the lack of radios had been a complaint of emergency services responders for years but was never dealt with and led to deaths of first repsonders in building collapses for which they should have been warned. In December 2006, Sally Regenhard, mother of firefighter Christian Regenhard who died on September 11, and co-founder of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, vowed to expose the truths of Giuliani's actions on 9/11 before 2008, stating, "I can't see why any 9/11 family member who knows the truth about the failures of the Giuliani administration . . . would not be outraged." She said in April 2007, "The bitter truth is that Rudy Giuliani is building a path to the White House over the bodies of 343 firefighters."

Main article: September 11, 2001 radio communications

By April of 2007 it was reported that Giuliani had been forced to limit his appearances in New York City due to the increasing protests by family members of 9/11 victims, particularly police, fire and other emergency workers.

Criticism for handling of Ground Zero air quality issue

Giuliani has been subject to increased criticism for downplaying the health effects of the air in the Financial District and lower Manhattan areas in the vicinity of the Ground Zero. He moved quickly to reopen Wall Street, and it was reopened on September 17. He said, in the first month after the attacks, "The air quality is safe and acceptable." However, in the weeks after the attacks, the United States Geological Survey identified hundreds of asbestos hot spots of debris dust that remained on buildings. By the end of the month the USGS reported that the toxicity of the debris was akin to that of drain cleaner.It would eventually be determined that a wide swath of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn had been heavily contaminated by highly caustic and toxic materials. The city's health agencies, such as the Department of Environmental Protection, did not supervise or issue guidelines for the testing and cleanup of private buildings. Instead, the city left this responsibility to building owners.

Firefighters, police and their unions, have criticized Giuliani over the issue of protective equipment and illnesses after the attacks.An October 2001 study by the National Institute of Environmental Safety and Health said that cleanup workers lacked adequate protective gear. The Executive Director of the National Fraternal Order of Police reportedly said of Giuliani: "Everybody likes a Churchillian kind of leader who jumps up when the ashes are still falling and takes over. But two or three good days don't expunge an eight-year record." Sally Regenhard, said, "There's a large and growing number of both FDNY families, FDNY members, former and current, and civilian families who want to expose the true failures of the Giuliani administration when it comes to 9/11." She told the New York Daily News that she intends to "Swift Boat" Giuliani.

A May 14, 2007 New York Times article, "Ground Zero Illness Clouding Giuliani's Legacy," gave the interpretation that thousands of workers at Ground Zero have become sick and that "many regard Mr. Giuliani's triumph of leadership as having come with a human cost." The article reported that Giuiliani seized control of the cleanup of Ground Zero, taking control away from experienced federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He instead handed over responsibility to the "largely unknown" city Department of Design and Construction. Documents indicate that the Giuliani administration never enforced federal requirements requiring the wearing of respirators. Concurrently, the administration threatened companies with dismissal if cleanup work slowed. The New York Times faulted his decision-making on the post September 11 cleanup of the World Trade Center site, in the lead editorial of the May 22, 2007 issue. Additionally, the Times took Giuliani to task for his handling of worker safety at the site and the issue of first responder health problems.

Giuliani wrote to the city's Congressional delegation and urged that the city's liability for Ground Zero illnesses be limited, in total, at $350 million. Two years after Mayor Giuliani finished his term, FEMA appropriated $1 billion to a special insurace fund to protect the city against 9/11 lawsuits.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is contemplating calling Giulani to testify before a Senate committee on whether the government failed to protect recovery workers from the effects of polluted Ground Zero air.

Matt Taibbi wrote an article for the June 14, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone, blaming Giuliani for rushing the recovery effort and setting a poor example for recovery workers .

In June of 2007, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and director of the Environmental Protection Agency Christie Whitman reportedly stated that the EPA had pushed for workers at the WTC site to wear respirators but that she had been blocked by Giuliani. She stated that she believed that the subsequent lung disease and deaths suffered by WTC responders were a result of these actions. [18]

Aftermath of Ground Zero recovery effort

In February 2007, the International Association of Fire Fighters issued a letter accusing Giuliani of "egregious acts" against the 343 firemen who had died in the September 11th attacks. The letter asserted that Giuliani rushed to conclude the recovery effort once gold and silver had been recovered from World Trade Center vaults and thereby prevented the remains of many victims from being recovered: "Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill," it said, adding: "Hundreds remained entombed in Ground Zero when Giuliani gave up on them." Lawyers for the International Association of Fire Fighters seek to interview Giuliani under oath as part of a federal legal action alleging that New York City negligently dumped body parts and other human remains in the Fresh Kills Landfill.

IAFF-sponsored presidential forum

Giuliani declined to appear at the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) sponsored March 14, 2007 forum. The IAFF's bipartisan presidential forum in Washington, D.C., included ten other major Democratic and Republican candidates seeking their support for their Presidential aspirations. The relations between Giuliani and the firefighters' union are strained due to their contention that he abandoned efforts to recover remains and effects of firefighters and other victims in the rubble of the World Trade Center, despite his public posturing of support.

Post-mayoralty

Business

Giuliani Partners

After leaving the mayor's office, Giuliani became a millionaire. He founded a security consulting business, Giuliani Partners LLC, in 2002, a firm that has been categorized by various media outlets as a lobbying entity capitalizing on Giuliani's name recognition.

Giuliani’s chosen partners at Giuliani Partners included a former FBI administrator, Pasquale J. D'Amuro, who admitted taking artifacts from Ground Zero, Alan Placa, a former Roman Catholic priest who was accused of covering up sexual abuse in the church, and Bernard Kerik, Giuliani's former police commissioner, who was later accused of having ties to organized crime.

"No client is ever approved or worked on without a full discussion with Rudy... We're cautious in the right sense of that term, in terms of who we work for. We always want to make sure it is a company that is doing the right thing, that we're proud to represent," according to Giuliani Partners’ senior managing partner, Michael D. Hess, former corporation counsel for New York City.

Over five years, Giuliani Partners would earn more than $100 million. One of Giuliani's clients during this time included an admitted drug smuggler and millionaire founder of companies that perform electronic information gathering (datamining) on individuals, Hank Asher, who according to a shareholder in the company, hired Giuliani for his "influence with the federal government to enable Mr. Asher to take an active role in Seisint as a chief executive officer despite the allegations about his drug dealing." Giuliani helped Asher's company get $12 million in government grants. After Asher's past was publicly revealed, he resigned from the company; Giuliani defended him to newspapers without mentioning that Asher was a paying client. After Asher's resignation, investors in the company, Seisint, looked into how much Giuliani Partners had been paid: $2 million a year in fees, a commission on sales of Seisint products, and 800,000 warrants for Seisint stock, which would prove valuable when Seisent was sold to Lexis Nexis for $775 million. One investor sued the board, claiming that Giuliani's contributions had not been worth the large amount paid."In Private Sector, Giuliani Parlayed Fame Into Wealth: Candidate's Firm Has Taken On Controversial Executives, Clients," By John Solomon and Matthew Mosk. "Wahington Post," May 13, 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/12/AR2007051201270_pf.html</ref>

In representing a pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, in a case against the Drug Enforcement Administration, Giuliani negotiated a $2 million fine and no further penalty for what the DEA called "lax security" at plants that produced OxyContin, which the DEA said was being used as a recreational drug. The lead DEA investigator later said that Purdue Pharma got off easily in the case because of Giuliani's connections to government officials. Giuliani later represented Purdue Pharma in a recently settled case in which the DEA accused the company of marketing OxyContin by playing down its level of addictive properties. Giuliani met with government lawyers six times to help negotiate a settlement in the case. Clients of Giuliani Partners are required to sign confidentiality agreements, so they do not comment about the work they get done or the amount that thay have paid for it. Giuliani has refused to talk about his clients, the work he did for them, the compensation he received from them, or any details about the company.

Mexico City hired Giuliani to consult on its crime rate, hoping for a drop in crime like that New York City had experienced in the 1990s. Giuliani toured the city for a day and Giuliani Partners produced a report analyzing ways in which crime could be reduced. However, in the year after the plan was implemented, crime dropped 1% and some city officials expressed regret at hiring Giuliani for a $4.3 million fee. Some called it a "$4 million publicity stunt". Some of the recommendations that were put into place included using Breathalyzers on drunk drivers and targeting "squeegee men".

On December 1, 2004 his consulting firm announced it purchased accounting firm Ernst & Young's investment banking unit. The new investment bank would be known as Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC and would advise companies on acquisitions, restructurings and other strategic issues. On March 5, 2007, as a consequence of his presidential campaign, Giuliani Capital Advisors was sold to Macquarie Group, an Australian financial group, for an amount that analysts said might approach $100 million.

Bracewell and Giuliani

On March 31, 2005, it was announced that Giuliani would join the firm of Bracewell & Patterson LLP (renamed Bracewell & Giuliani LLP) as a name partner and symbolic head of the expanding firm's new New York office. Despite a busy schedule the former mayor is known to be highly active in the day-to-day business of the Texas-based law firm described by the New York Times as "perhaps the nation’s most aggressive lobbyist for coal-fired power plants, heavy emitters of air pollutants and carbon dioxide, a gas associated with global warming." While there was early speculation that the firm would merge with Giuliani Partners, this is a legal impossibility (as a matter of ethics, lawyers cannot share legal fees with non-lawyers). However, while the firm is completely independent of the consulting business, the two entities maintain a close strategic partnership.

On May 15, 2007 the Associated Press reported that Giuliani "has profited from his firm's work representing corporate clients before nearly every Cabinet department, exposing himself to a wide range of potential ethical entanglements." It was further reported that Giuliani's efforts on behalf of clients such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the chewing tobacco manufacturer UST Inc. had "contributed toward his personal net worth of millions of dollars."[19]

Bracewell and Giuliani has also been tied to the Trans-Texas Corridor, as the firm represents Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A, one of the investment firms involved in the financing of the project.

On June 7th, 2007, Fidelis America, a Catholic political advocacy group, reported that Bracewell & Giuliani has lobbied for stem cell research on behalf of John Hopkins Institutions.

Politics

Since leaving office as Mayor, Giuliani has remained politically active by campaigning for Republican candidates for political offices at all levels. He was one of the keynote speakers at the 2004 Republican National Convention, where he endorsed George W. Bush for re-election by recalling that immediately after the World Trade Center towers fell, "Without really thinking, based on just emotion, spontaneous, I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, and I said to him, 'Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president.'"

Similarly, in June 2006, Giuliani started a website called Solutions America to help elect Republicans candidates across the nation.

After campaigning on behalf of George W. Bush in the 2004 election, he was reportedly the top choice for Secretary of Homeland Security after the resignation of Tom Ridge. When suggestions were made that Giuliani's confirmation hearings would be marred by details of his past affairs and scandals, he turned down the offer and instead recommended his friend and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Kerik in his pre-announcement interviews with the White House failed to disclose facts in his past that were certain to disqualify him. After the formal announcement of Kerik's nomination, information known for years to local reporters, but unreported, became widely known (most notably, that Kerik had ties to organized crime, but also that he had been sued for sexual harrassment and had employed an undocumented alien as a domestic servant). The political fallout was damaging to the perception of competence in the White House vetting process and doubts as to Giuliani's ethics and political judgment in recommending Kerik in the first place.

Giuliani cutting the ribbon of the new Drug Enforcement Agency mobile museum in Dallas, Texas in Sept. 2003

Speculation that Giuliani might become a candidate for 2006 statewide office took place early in that election cycle, with the notion that Giuliani might run for either for the United States Senate challenging incumbent Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, or for Governor of New York, as incumbent Republican Governor George Pataki announced that he would not seek re-election in July 2005. The consensus of political observers then was that Giuliani would not run even though polls show that he would be favored in a matchup against Democratic gubernatorial nominee Eliot Spitzer ; in any case, a Giuliani spokesman said that he "has no intention" of running, leaving no clear favorite among Republicans. With Giuliani staying out of both races, the Republican nominations fell to little-known candiates, and both Clinton and Spitzer won by very large margins.

On March 15, 2006, Congress formed the Iraq Study Group (ISG). This ten-person bipartisan panel was charged with assessing the Iraq War and making recommendations. They would eventually unanimously conclude that contrary to Bush Administration assertions, "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and called for "changes in the primary mission" that would allow "the United States to begin to move its forces out of Iraq". On May 24, 2006, five weeks after accepting appointment to the ISG, and after missing all of the group's meetings, Giuliani resigned, citing his "previous time commitments". It later was discovered that it was Giuliani's fundraising schedule which had kept him from participating in the panel, a schedule which raised $11.4 million in speaking fees over fourteen months, and that Giuliani had been forced to resign after being given "an ultimatum to either show up for meetings or leave the group".Giuliani was described by Newsweek magazine in January of 2007 as "one of the most consistent cheerleaders for the president’s handling of the war in Iraq" and as of June of 2007 remained one of the few candidates for president to unequivocally support both the basis for the invasion and the execution of the war.

Contrasts with successor Michael Bloomberg

A May 14, 2007 "New York Daily News" poll indicates that 56 percent of polled New Yorkers believe that Bloomberg has done a better job as mayor, and that 29 percent believed that Giuliani had been a better job as mayor. 46% of those polled also indicated they would choose Bloomberg over Giuliani as President; Giuliani received the support of only 29% of New Yorkers.[20]

Media

Giuliani published Leadership, his account of his mayoralty, in 2002.

In 2003, the USA Network aired a made-for-television movie: Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story with James Woods in the title role.

Giuliani appeared in a cameo role in Adam Sandler's 2003 film Anger Management. In it, he uses Rob Schneider's catch phrase, "You can do it!"

On May 12, 2006, Cinema Libre Studio released Giuliani Time, a critical, feature-length documentary about Giuliani's personal and political history.

Speaking fees

He has drawn scrutiny for his speaking fees, which are $100,000 per appearance, not including expenses. He netted $11 million in 2006, in book income and in speaking fees, usually on the September 11 theme. [21]

Political positions

Main article: Political positions of Rudy Giuliani

An August 2006 poll from Rasmussen Reports revealed the perception of Giuliani as an overall moderate. Specifically, of those Americans polled, 36% classified him as a moderate, 29% as a conservative, and 15% as a liberal, with the remaining 20% being unsure.

Giuliani has been the target of criticism from many conservatives for his socially liberal political views on subjects such as abortion, illegal immigration, gun control, and gay rights.

Personal life

Giuliani has been married three times. His first marriage was to educator Regina Peruggi, whom Giuliani had known since childhood and was his second cousin, on October 26, 1968, soon after he graduated law school. In 1976, Giuliani filed for a trial separation. Peruggi had not accompanied him to Washington when he accepted the job in the Attorney General's Office. Giuliani met local television personality Donna Hanover sometime in 1982, and they began dating when she was working in Miami. Giuliani filed for legal separation from Peruggi on August 12, 1982. Giuliani and Hanover started living together later that year in Washington, D.C. The Giuliani-Peruggi marriage was ended in two ways: a civil divorce was issued by the end of 1982, while a Roman Catholic Church annulment of the Giuliani-Peruggi marriage was granted at the end of 1983, according to Giuliani, because he discovered after 14 years that he and his wife were second cousins, rather than third cousins, and they did not have the Church dispensation thus needed. Giuliani and Peruggi did not have any children.

Giuliani and Hanover then married in a Catholic ceremony at St. Monica's Church in New York on April 15, 1984. They had two children, son Andrew (born January 30, 1986) and daughter Caroline (born 1989). Andrew first became a familiar sight by misbehaving at Giuliani's first mayoral inaguration, then with his father at New York Yankees games, of whom Rudy Giuliani is an enthusiastic fan; Andrew also was an accomplished junior golfer.

Beginning in 1996, Giuliani and Hanover's public relationship became distant, with Hanover appearing at few public events. In 1997, a Vanity Fair article report that Giuliani had a romantic relationship with Cristyne Lategano, the mayor's communications director. The mayor and Lategano denied the allegations.

In May 2000, the New York Daily News broke news of Giuliani's extramarital relationship with Judith Nathan, a sales manager for a pharmaceutical company. Giuliani then called a press conference to announce that he intended to separate from Hanover. Hanover, however, had not been told about his plans before his press conference, an omission for which Giuliani was widely criticized. Previously, Giuliani had hinted at the relationship by referring to Nathan as his "very good friend." Giuliani now went on to praise Nathan as a "very, very fine woman", and said about his marriage with Hanover, that "over the course of some period of time in many ways, we've grown to live independent and separate lives." Hours later Hanover said, "I had hoped that we could keep this marriage together. For several years, it was difficult to participate in Rudy's public life because of his relationship with one staff member," a reference to Lategano. Giuliani, Hanover and Nathan appeared on the cover of People magazine in the aftermath.

Giuliani then moved out of Gracie Mansion and into an apartment belonging to two gay friends. Giuliani filed for divorce against Hanover in October 2000, and an unpleasant public battle broke out between their representatives. Nathan was barred by court order from entering Gracie Mansion (where Hanover still lived) or meeting his children before the divorce was final. In May 2001, in an effort to mitigate the bad publicity from the proceedings, Giuliani's attorney revealed (with the mayor's approval) that Giuliani was impotent due to his prostate cancer treatments and had not had sex with Nathan for the preceding year. "You don't get through treatment for cancer and radiation all by yourself," Giuliani said. "You need people to help you and care for you and support you. And I'm very fortunate I had a lot of people who did that, but nobody did more to help me than Judith Nathan." Giuliani and Hanover finally settled their acrimonious divorce case in July 2002, after his mayoralty had ended, with Giuliani paying Hanover a $6.8 million settlement and granting her custody of their children.

Giuliani subsequently married Judith Nathan on May 24, 2003, and thus gained a stepdaughter, Whitney. It was also Nathan's third marriage after two prior divorces.

By March 2007, The New York Times and the New York Daily News reported that Rudy Giuliani had become estranged from both his son Andrew (now a Duke Blue Devils golf team member at Duke University aspiring to a professional career, and who was quoted as saying "I have problems with my father. There's obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife.") and his daughter Caroline (now a high school senior, due to enter Harvard University in the fall), missing major events in their lives, such as graduations, and sometimes going long stretches without talking to them, and that neither of them was taking part in his presidential campaign. Caroline uses her mother's surname, Hanover, rather than Giuliani's, and according to reports, she did not inform Giuliani when she was accepted to Harvard. The official Giuliani campaign website biography mentions Nathan but not his children or his former wives.

Giuliani has said that if elected President, he will have Judi sit in on Cabinet meetings.

2008 presidential campaign

Main article: Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign, 2008

A draft movement began in late 2005 to get Giuliani to run for President of the United States in 2008. Throughout 2006, rumors circulated regarding a possible Giuliani campaign, abetted by hints from the former Mayor himself. In November 2006 Giuliani announced the formation of an exploratory committee. In February 2007 he filed a "statement of candidacy" and confirmed on the television program Larry King Live that he was indeed running.

Early polls showed him with one of the highest levels of name recognition and support and the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination. However in June of 2007 a poll of New York voters revealed that Giuliani had less support in his home state than elsewhere, and particularly that a majority of New York City voters disapproved of him. [22] However the Associated Press reported that Giuliani did appear to be the favorite candidate of the largest Gay Republican organization, the Log Cabin Republicans.

Giuliani and the nine other Republican presidential contenders participated in the first MSNBC 2008 Republican Presidential Candidates Debate on May 3, 2007, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. In the non-scientific six part MSNBC online vote following the debate, Giuliani finished in 3rd place (15%). In addition, the vote rated Giuliani #1 (38%) as the candidate "Who avoided the questions?". However, this is not a random sampling of the population — it is an online vote of interested people, so has no statistical value.

In Giuliani's second appearance in a major 2007 GOP debate, on May 15, conducted by Fox News, he challenged fellow candidate Representative Ron Paul, when Paul stated that the United States' military interventionist policy was a contributing factor to why America has been attacked and why there are anti-American feelings in the region. Giuliani interrupted the debate and said that Paul made "an extraordinary statement" and that "as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th." While Paul's assertions have received criticism from some from some pundits from the political right (particularly FOX news commentator Sean Hannity and GOP spokesman Michael Steele ) as well, other reports have found that Congressman Paul's statement has been supported by the 9/11 Commission Report, which intimates that the 9/11 attacks were a form of blowback from previous American involvement in the Middle East and by experts on the Middle East.

Former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer, wrote of Paul's statements: "Last week, Representative Paul did all Americans an immense service by simply pointing out the obvious: Our Islamist enemies do not give a damn about the way we vote, think, or live... . We are indeed hated and being warred against because we are 'over there,' and not for what we are and how we live. Our failure to recognize the truth spoken by Mr. Paul – and spelled out for us in hundreds of pages of statements by Osama bin Laden since 1996 – is leading America toward military and economic disaster.... And no matter how you view Mr. Paul’s words, you can safely take one thing to the bank. The person most shaken by Mr. Paul’s frankness was Osama bin Laden, who knows that the current status quo in U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic world is al-Qaeda’s one indispensable ally, and the only glue that provides cohesion between and among the diverse and often fractious Islamist groups that follow its banner."

Appearing on CNN the next day, Ron Paul asked why Giuliani had not read the 9/11 Commission Report and asked for an apology. The Nation noted that former CIA specialists on Osama bin Laden Michael Scheuer outlined contributing factors that are similar to those mentioned in Paul's debate statements. In a press conference on May 24, 2007, Paul and Scheuer assigned Giuliani a reading list of foreign policy books, including Dying to Win, Blowback, Imperial Hubris and the 9/11 Commission Report.

By June 5, 2007 his poll percentages had fallen. After the appearance of former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson as a potential candidate, Giuliani's poll percentage dropped to 23%, according to Rasmussen Reports. According to most polls, however, Giuliani leads in the race for the Republican nomination by a significant margin, as of late June 2007.

On June 19, 2007, Thomas Ravenel, the head of the Giuliani campaign in South Carolina and that state's Treasurer was indicted for cocaine distribution.[23]

Controversies

Annulment of first marriage

Some claim that Giuliani knew all along that his first wife Regina Peruggi was his second cousin (Peruggi was the daughter of Giuliani's father's cousin), and simply used that fact as an excuse to get the marriage annulled. According to these accounts, Monsignor Alan Placa, a Catholic priest and childhood friend of both Giuliani and Peruggi, had offered assurances to Giuliani's mother that the relation would not be a problem.

Promotion of Bernard Kerik

Critics state that Giuliani showed consistently poor judgment in promoting the career of Bernard Kerik, who started out as a New York Police Department detective driving for his campaign, then became the city's Correction Commissioner and later police commissioner and a founder of Giuliani Partners. Giuliani then pushed President Bush to nominate Kerik to be secretary of Homeland Security, at which point multiple scandals derailed the nomination and Kerik's career; subsequently Kerik pled guilty to corruption charges dating from his Corrections days. In March of 2007, The New York Times reported that Kerik was likely to also be indicted for tax fraud and illegal eavesdropping, and also disclosed that Giuliani had testified under oath in April 2006 that he had in fact been briefed on Kerik's mob links in 2000 — prior to his appointment of Kerik as Corrections Commissioner. Giuliani had previously denied knowing of these connections until years later.

Promotion of Russell Harding

In 2000, Mayor Giuliani appointed 34-year-old Russell Harding, the son of Liberal Party of New York boss and longtime Giuliani mentor Raymond Harding, to head the New York City Housing Development Corporation, despite Harding not having a college degree or relevant experience for the position. Harding spent lavishly on himself in the job; in 2005, he pled guilty to defrauding the Housing Development Corporation and possession of child pornography and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Attempts to Restrict Free Speech

In 2000, Mayor Giuliani received a "Muzzle Award" from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Muzzles are "awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech." This was Giuliani's third such award, including an unprecedented first awarding of a "Lifetime Muzzle Award," which noted he had "stifled speech and press to so unprecedented a degree, and in so many and varied forms, that simply keeping up with the city's censorious activity has proved a challenge for defenders of free expression."

More than 35 successful lawsuits were brought against Giuliani and his administration for blocking free speech. In his book Speaking Freely, First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams said Giuliani had an "insistence on doing the one thing that the First Amendment most clearly forbids: using the power of government to restrict or punish speech critical of government itself."

Some of the court cases which found the Giuliani administration to have violated First Amendment rights included actions barring public events from their previous location at the City Hall steps, not allowing taxi drivers to assemble for a protest, not allowing city workers to speak to the press without permission, barring church members from delivering an AIDS education program in a park, denying a permit for a march to object to police brutality, issuing summons and seizing literature of three workers collecting signatures to get a candidate on the presidential ballot, imposing strict licensing restrictions on sidewalk artists that were struck down by a court of appeals as a violation of artists' rights, imposing an excessive daily fee on street musicians, imposing varying city fees for newsstand owners based on the content they sold, a case against Time Warner Cable, and an incident in which Giuliani ordered an ad for New York magazine that featured his image taken down from city buses. The ad featured a copy of the magazine with the caption, "Possibly the only good thing Rudy hasn't taken credit for". The next year, the group awarded the Muzzle to Giuliani again for his actions against the Brooklyn Museum exhibit.

Giuliani and his administration encountered accusations of blocking free speech arising from a lawsuit brought by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for removing the homeless from the church's steps against the church's will, and during his 1993 campaign, when he criticized incumbent Mayor Dinkins for allowing Louis Farrakhan to speak in the city. After being criticized for impinging on freedom of speech, he backed down from his criticism of Dinkins.

Giuliani Partners business deals

Forbes reported in November 2006 that Giuliani Partners also accepted fees from penny stock firms, made alliances that have gone nowhere and formed pacts with businesses and individuals that have come under scrutiny by regulators and law enforcement officers. For instance, Giuliani Capital Advisors accepted 1.6 million warrants from Lighting Science Group at 60 cents, a fee of $150,000 and a promise to raise cash. The company went bankrupt, losing $412,000 on sales of $137,000 in the first part of 2006. Another venture CamelBak, started out under Giuliani's consulting arrangement with $31 million in sales, but was run into the ground with various missteps, including having the disgraced Bernard Kerik sit on its board. Forbes said Giuliani's most controversial deal was throwing in with a 2004 project with Applied DNA Sciences. Its backer, Richard Langley Jr. had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and commercial bribery in another penny stock scam.

Lobbying efforts on behalf of Venezuelan oil company Citgo

In March of 2007 it was revealed that the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm was acting as a lobbyist on behalf of the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company Citgo in Texas. Citgo had been the focus of boycott efforts due to the Socialist policies of President Hugo Chavez and allegations by the U.S. Government that Venezuela has "not cooperated" in the War on Terror.

New York Yankees gifts

On 8 May, 2007, the Village Voice published a feature questioning whether Giuliani might have received gifts from the New York Yankees baseball team that violated a city ordinance against receipt of gifts by public officials. The gifts possibly included tickets, souvenirs, and World Series championship rings from 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000. However, the Yankees' public relations firm produced documents that the rings were sold to Giuliani for a total of $16,000 in 2003 and 2004, although this departs from usual industry practice. The article further questioned whether Giuliani properly reported these gifts or paid any necessary taxes on this gifts. The rings have been estimated to have a market value of $200,000, and the tickets to box and Legends seats a value of $120,000. Much of this information was substantiated by a subsequent May 12 New York Times report. The New York Times described Giuliani's role during his mayoral term as "First Fan" and "the team's landlord", providing the public Yankee Stadium to the franchise for a rent lower than that paid by residents of the adjacent St. Mary's public housing project.

Fox News conflict of interest

News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, is a client of Giuliani. This has raised questions about Fox News' co-sponsorship of the May 15 2007 Republican debate.

In 1996, Ted Turner suggested that Giuliani had a conflict of interest in dealing with Mr. Murdoch's media empire because his wife was employed by a television station owned by Mr. Murdoch.

Radio Comments to Parkinson's Disease Patient

As depicted in the documentary Giuliani Time, Parkinson's patient John Hynes called Giuliani's weekly radio show to complain about being cut off from Medicaid after paying more than $100,000 of taxes in his life, before he was disabled with Parkinson's. Hynes accused the administration of repeatedly opening fraud investigations on him, then dropping the case for lack of evidence only to re-open it. Hynes told Giuliani, "The biggest thing you could do to reduce crime would be to resign, sir. Crime would drop like a rock if you resigned. You're the biggest criminal in the city." Giuliani responded, "What kind of little hole are you in there, John? It sounds like you are in a little hole. JOHN! Are you okay there? You're breathing funny." Hynes replied: "No, I'm not okay. I'm sick, and you cut me off my food stamps and Medicaid several times; but I suppose you don't give a damn about that either." Giuliani replied, "There's something really wrong with you there, John. I can hear it in your voice.... Now, why don't you stay on the line. We'll take your name and your number and we'll send you psychiatric help, 'cause you seriously need it."

After Hynes hung up, Giuliani continued, "Man! Look, it's a big city, and you get some real weirdos who hang out in this city, and that's what I was worried about on, uh, New Year's Eve. I wasn't, you know—I figured, the terrorist groups and all that we could keep under control—worried, but who knows what, what's living in some cave somewhere. So, uh, and John called up. John calls up from Queens, but who knows where he's from."

Hynes said, "Mr. Giuliani showed a total lack of respect for all disabled people when he mocked me after I revealed that I was sick."

Support for waterboarding

Giuliani has supported "waterboarding" (A form of torture[24] using water soaked cloth to choke the victim) in the course of interrogation. Former Viet Nam POW and torture victim Sen. John McCain has said that it can damage the subject's psyche "in ways that may never heal" and has pointed out that "under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear—whether it is true or false—if he believes it will relieve his suffering." [25]. Critics of torture including Mccain have also pointed out that use of torture by the US makes it more likely that American POWs will be tortured in turn.[26] Giuliani (who never served in the military) has said that the United States should use "every method they could think of."

Allegations of not having read 9/11 Commission's Report

In Giuliani's second appearance in a major 2007 GOP debate, on May 15, conducted by Fox News, he challenged fellow candidate Representative Ron Paul, when Paul stated that the United States' military interventionist policy was a contributing factor to why America has been attacked and why there are anti-American feelings in the region. Giuliani interrupted the debate and said that Paul made "an extraordinary statement" and that "as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th." While Paul's assertions have received criticism from some from some pundits from the political right (particularly FOX news commentator Sean Hannity and GOP spokesman Michael Steele) as well, other reports have found that Congressman Paul's statement has been supported by the 9/11 Commission Report, which intimates that the 9/11 attacks were a form of blowback from previous American involvement in the Middle East and by experts on the Middle East.

Former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer, wrote of Paul's statements: "Last week, Representative Paul did all Americans an immense service by simply pointing out the obvious: Our Islamist enemies do not give a damn about the way we vote, think, or live…We are indeed hated and being warred against because we are 'over there,' and not for what we are and how we live. Our failure to recognize the truth spoken by Mr. Paul – and spelled out for us in hundreds of pages of statements by Osama bin Laden since 1996 – is leading America toward military and economic disaster…And no matter how you view Mr. Paul’s words, you can safely take one thing to the bank. The person most shaken by Mr. Paul’s frankness was Osama bin Laden, who knows that the current status quo in U.S. foreign policy toward the Islamic world is al-Qaeda’s one indispensable ally, and the only glue that provides cohesion between and among the diverse and often fractious Islamist groups that follow its banner."

Appearing on CNN the next day, Ron Paul asked why Giuliani had not read the 9/11 Commission Report and asked for an apology. The Nation noted that former CIA specialists on Osama bin Laden Michael Scheuer outlined contributing factors that are similar to those mentioned in Paul's debate statements. In a press conference on May 24, 2007, Paul and Scheuer assigned Giuliani a reading list of foreign policy books, including Dying to Win, Blowback, Imperial Hubris and the 9/11 Commission Report.

Membership in the Iraq Study Group

After being appointed to the Iraq Study Group in early 2006, Giuliani did not attend any meetings. When asked by Group leader James Baker to make a choice—between attending meetings and resigning from the Group—Giuliani chose to quit in May, 2006, citing "previous time commitments." In June 2007, Newsday reported that the commitments consisted largely of speaking engagements that were part of a tour in which Giuliani earned $11.4 million in 14 months. The article noted, "By giving up his seat on the panel, Giuliani has opened himself up to charges that he chose private-sector paydays and politics over unpaid service on a critical issue facing the nation." After the Newsday story, Giuliani said that he'd started thinking about running for President, and being on the panel might give it a political spin. But Giuliani had "been set to run for months, if not years" before he accepted appointment to the panel.

Relationship with Alleged Pedophile Priest

In June of 2007 organizations advocating for the rights of children sexually molested by priests urged Giuliani to fire long time friend Msgr. Alan Placa, a former priest employed by Giuliani Partners despite having been suspended by the Catholic church after a grand jury accused him both of sexually molesting numerous children and of covering up molestation by other priests. David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests stated there existed "ample evidence showing that Placa consistently protected predators, shrewdly deceived victims, and covered up horrific clergy sex crimes." [27]. Individuals have also come forward to testify both to the grand jury and to the media that they were molested by Placa. Placa reportedly has admitted to being the person identified in the grand jury report as "Priest F" - a man who the grand jury described as "cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office. Always, his actions were hidden by a poster, newspaper or a book. ... Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."[28] Despite the formal report, the 2003 grand jury did not file an indictment due to the statute of limitations on sexual abuse having expired.[29]. Giuliani has reportedly said he has no plans to fire the former priest. [30]

Giuliani and Placa reportedly have been close friends since childhood. Placa was best man at Giuliani's wedding to second-cousin Regina Peruggi and then assisted Giuliani get that marriage annulled over the objections of his wife so that he could marry girlfriend Donna Hannover.[31]

Awards and honors

File:NREAGANGIULIANI.jpg

Giuliani is awarded the 2002 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award by Former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

• In 1998, Mayor Giuliani received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York."

• For his leadership on and after September 11, Giuliani was given an honorary knighthood (KBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on February 13, 2002.

• In 2002, the Episcopal Diocese of New York gave Giuliani the Fiorello LaGuardia Public Service Award for Valor and Leadership in the Time of Global Crisis.

• Also in 2002, Former First Lady Nancy Reagan awarded the Mayor the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award. The award is given to "those who have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of freedom," and who "embody President Reagan's lifelong belief that one man or woman truly can make a difference."

• In 2004, construction began on the Rudolph W. Giuliani Trauma Center at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York.

• In 2005, Giuliani received honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. In 2007, Giuliani received an honorary Doctorate in Public Administration from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, SC.

• In 2006, Rudy and Judith Giuliani were honored by the American Heart Association at its annual Heart of the Hamptons benefit in Water Mill, New York.

Electoral history

• 1989 Race for Mayor (New York City)
  • David Dinkins (D), 51%
  • Rudy Giuliani (R), 49%

• 1993 Race for Mayor (New York City)
  • Rudy Giuliani (R), 49%
  • David Dinkins (D) (inc.), 46%

• 1997 Race for Mayor (New York City)
  • Rudy Giuliani (R) (inc.), 59%
  • Ruth Messinger (D), 41%

Books

• Barrett, Wayne, (2000). Rudy!: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani. Basic Books, ISBN 0-7567-6114-X (Reprint by Diane Publishing Co.)
• Barrett, Wayne & Collins, Dan (2006). Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-053660-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Brodeur, Christopher X., (2002). "Perverted Little Creep; Mayor Giuliani vs Mayor Brodeur". ExtremeNY books, ISBN 0-9741593-0-1.
• Giuliani, Rudolph W., Kurson, Ken (2002). Leadership. Miramax Books. ISBN 0-7868-6841-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Gonzalez, Juan, (2002). Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse. New Press, ISBN 1565847547
• Kirtzman, Andrew (2001). Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-009389-7.
• Koch, Edward I. (1999). Giuliani: Nasty Man. Barricade Books. ISBN 1-56980-155-X. Reissued, 2007.
• Mandery, Evan, (1999). The Campaign: Rudy Giuliani, Ruth Messinger, Al Sharpton, and the Race to Be Mayor of New York City. Westview Press, ISBN -10: 0813366984.
• Newfield, Jack, (2003). The Full Rudy: The Man, the Myth, the Mania. Thunder's Mouth Press, ISBN 1-56025-482-3
• Polner, Robert, (2005). America's Mayor: The Hidden History of Rudy Giuliani's New York. Soft Skull Press, ISBN 1-932360-58-1
• Polner, Robert, (2007). America's Mayor, America's President? The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani. [Preface by Jimmy Breslin] Soft Skull Press, ISBN 1-933368-72-1
• Siegel, Fred (2005). The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life. Encounter Books. ISBN 1-59403-084-7.

Films

Biographical drama

• Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story (2003).

Documentary film

• Keating, Kevin, Giuliani Time (2006).

See also

• September 11, 2001 attacks
• William J. Bratton (former Police Commissioner of New York City)
• Bernard Kerik (former Police Commissioner of New York City)
• Anthony Rosario
• Howard Safir (former Police Commissioner of New York City)
• Peter Vallone (former Speaker of New York City Council)
• Thomas Von Essen (former Fire Commissioner of New York City)

External links

Official sites

• Join Rudy 2008 Giuliani For President Exploratory Committee.

Documentaries, topic pages and databases

• Federal Election Commission — Rudolph W Giuliani Presidential campaign finance reports and data
• NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - Vote 2008: Rudy Giuliani
• On the Issues — Rudy Giuliani issue positions and quotes
• OpenSecrets.org — Rudy Giuliani campaign contributions
• Project Vote Smart - Rudy Giuliani voter information
• Giuliani Partners at Stockpikr public companies Giuliani Partners has done business with
• Rudolph W. Giuliani Vulnerability Study study prepared for his 1993 Mayoral Campaign
• Rudy Giuliani at Curlie

Media coverage

• The New York Times — Rudolph W. Giuliani News news stories and commentary
• Rudy Giuliani in the News articles from media around the world
• Giuliani at Large news items from mainstream media sources
• Mayor Rudy Giuliani press conference with Governor Pete Wilson of California March 29, 1995 as Wilson campaigns as a Presidential candidate

Grassroots campaigns

• Draft Rudy Giuliani for President federal committee organized to "Draft Rudy Giuliani" in 2008.
• Unofficial Giuliani Blog