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Tuesday, July 04, 2023 6:15:54 PM
The fall of Rudy Giuliani, once the toast of New York, continues unabated
"WSJ: Giuliani testified for 8 hours in DOJ probe, questioned on Sidney Powell"
Despite his standing as a top prosecutor and mayor, the warning signs were there – we just chose to ignore them
Lloyd Green Opinion
Thu 18 May 2023 01.26 AEST
Last modified on Thu 18 May 2023 03.44 AEST
‘In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, hair dye running down Rudy’s face became another unforgettable scene in American political lore.’ Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
From “America’s mayor” to a human punchline, Rudy Giuliani’s descent continues unabated. On Monday, news broke of the septuagenarian Giuliani being slammed with a $10m sexual harassment and unpaid wages lawsuit .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/15/rudy-giuliani-lawsuit-noelle-dunphy-sexual-assault .. brought by Noelle Dunphy .. https://eddsa.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/public/650033_2023_Noelle_Dunphy_v_Rudolph_W_Giuliani_et_al_COMPLAINT_10.pdf , 43, a former aide. The mighty have fallen.
Trump’s allies attempt to undermine prosecutors endangering his 2024 bid
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/17/donald-trump-republican-allies-prosecutors-investigations
Once he was the toast of town. As a federal prosecutor he sent a congressman to jail, locked up mobsters and indicted white-collar criminals. As mayor, he made the streets again feel safe. Love him or hate him, crime precipitously dropped on his watch.
In the days and months following 9/11, he projected strength, confidence and reassurance. He had braced himself for a calamity; he just didn’t know its source or when it would happen. He was steady when crunchtime arrived.
As mayor, his tenure was consequential. His eight years at city hall rank up there with Fiorello La Guardia, Michael Bloomberg and Ed Koch. All that feels like aeons ago.
These days, Giuliani and the words “defendant” and “buffoon” stand adjacent. He remains under criminal investigation by a Georgia prosecutor. Beyond that, he is a defendant in at least three separate pending election-related defamation lawsuits.
His life is tumultuous. He is plagued by an image problem. His appearance in Borat 2 will forever haunt him. [??? didn't see it. Ok. Insert
Sleaze.]
Watching him shove his hands down his pants was pathetic and pitiable. His awkwardness and desperation remain indelible.
But it doesn’t end there. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, hair dye running down Rudy’s face became another unforgettable scene in American political lore.
It presaged what followed. In that moment, you knew that Rudy had gone off the rails, worse that he possessed no limits when it came to Trump.
Yet Giuliani’s latest woes cannot be described as wholly surprising. He always possessed a penchant for drama and a tropism for the transgressive. He loved the opera and his life emerged as operatic. As a prosecutor, he dressed up “undercover”. Then as mayor, he performed onstage in drag with Trump.
All that came with a darker side. The warning signs were there. We just chose to ignore them.
Amid his first campaign for mayor, in 1989, a story broke of a concentration camp survivor, Simon Berger, being held in federal custody, facing a blackboard that read “Arbeit Macht Frei”, the slogan written across the gates of Auschwitz .. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/19/nyregion/giuliani-campaign-tries-to-overcome-stumbling-start.html . Berger would be acquitted. Decades later, Dunphy alleged that Giuliani has a problem with Jews.
Fast forward to May 2000. Giuliani publicly announced that he was leaving Donna Hanover, his second wife. No one was more shocked than Hanover. Rudy had shredded the boundary between public and private.
A year later, Rudy attempted to stretch out his term as mayor beyond its legal limits. Then again, his mother was a fan of Mussolini and his father spent time for armed robbery at Sing Sing, a prison located in upstate New York.
Rudy also sought to make Bernie Kerik, his police commissioner, head of US homeland security. That went badly. Kerik eventually wound up in prison and George W Bush was left to do clean-up on aisle seven.
[ Trump pardons Bernard Kerik: Why the former N.Y. police commissioner spent time in prison Feb. 19, 2020, 8:55 AM AEDT
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-pardons-bernard-kerik-why-former-n-y-police-commissioner-n1138236 ]
During the 2016-17 presidential transition, rumours swirled .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/12/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-secretary-state .. of Giuliani coveting an appointment as secretary of state. That moment never arrived.
There were “whispers from the staff ‘about his health and stability’,” Michael Wolff wrote in Fire and Fury, his 2018 blockbuster.
To be sure, they were the same whispers .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/12/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-secretary-state .. echoed at a pre-inaugural lunch held at a Manhattan steakhouse by veterans of Giuliani’s time at city hall, and those with significant ties to the Trump administration.
For the record, Dunphy’s pleadings are replete with references to Giuliani and alcohol.
Giuliani and Ukraine made headlines, too. He and his buddies played Inspector Clouseau. In the end, Giuliani avoided prosecution, but Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were convicted on federal charges.
[10 Years of Super PACs Show Courts Were Wrong on Corruption Risks
[...]The groups — which are often staffed by former employees of the candidates — throw their money and resources behind candidates or political causes favored by the wealthy donors. The process drowns out the voices of regular voters, giving the superrich a level of access to and influence over the political process that’s impossible for the vast majority of Americans to obtain. Examples abound over the last decade.
P - The most recent high-profile one involves Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Ukrainian-American businessmen who used large contributions to a pro-Trump super PAC to get facetime with the president. They took the opportunity to advocate .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/us/politics/trump-ukraine-donors.html .. for the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, a move they viewed as benefiting their own interests and those of another Ukrainian government official.
P - Or there’s the case of Jose Susumo Azano Matsura, a Mexican businessman interested in building a waterfront development in San Diego. He was convicted in 2016 of funneling $500,000 in illegal foreign money into a San Diego mayoral race to gain support for the project, using a shell company and super PAC .. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-feds-say-azano-wanted-to-buy-a-mayor-2016jul27-story.html .. to disguise the foreign source of much of the funds.
P - Real estate was also a factor one year later on the east coast, when former Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco pleaded no contest...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171551845]
The political dexterity and judgment that Giuliani once demonstrated has vanished. He is conscious of the decline. “I don’t care about my legacy,” he adds. “I’ll be dead.”
Nearly three years after the 2020 election, Trump refuses to concede and remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. “Giuliani, on the other hand, [is] finished in every conceivable way .. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/13/giuliani-book-review-andrew-kirtzman-mayor-trump ,” wrote Giuliani biographer Andrew Kirtzman.
Along the way, Rudy’s future grows bleaker and more mirthless.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/17/rudy-giuliani-new-york-fall-lloyd-green
"WSJ: Giuliani testified for 8 hours in DOJ probe, questioned on Sidney Powell"
Despite his standing as a top prosecutor and mayor, the warning signs were there – we just chose to ignore them
Lloyd Green Opinion
Thu 18 May 2023 01.26 AEST
Last modified on Thu 18 May 2023 03.44 AEST
‘In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, hair dye running down Rudy’s face became another unforgettable scene in American political lore.’ Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
From “America’s mayor” to a human punchline, Rudy Giuliani’s descent continues unabated. On Monday, news broke of the septuagenarian Giuliani being slammed with a $10m sexual harassment and unpaid wages lawsuit .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/15/rudy-giuliani-lawsuit-noelle-dunphy-sexual-assault .. brought by Noelle Dunphy .. https://eddsa.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/public/650033_2023_Noelle_Dunphy_v_Rudolph_W_Giuliani_et_al_COMPLAINT_10.pdf , 43, a former aide. The mighty have fallen.
Trump’s allies attempt to undermine prosecutors endangering his 2024 bid
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/17/donald-trump-republican-allies-prosecutors-investigations
Once he was the toast of town. As a federal prosecutor he sent a congressman to jail, locked up mobsters and indicted white-collar criminals. As mayor, he made the streets again feel safe. Love him or hate him, crime precipitously dropped on his watch.
In the days and months following 9/11, he projected strength, confidence and reassurance. He had braced himself for a calamity; he just didn’t know its source or when it would happen. He was steady when crunchtime arrived.
As mayor, his tenure was consequential. His eight years at city hall rank up there with Fiorello La Guardia, Michael Bloomberg and Ed Koch. All that feels like aeons ago.
These days, Giuliani and the words “defendant” and “buffoon” stand adjacent. He remains under criminal investigation by a Georgia prosecutor. Beyond that, he is a defendant in at least three separate pending election-related defamation lawsuits.
His life is tumultuous. He is plagued by an image problem. His appearance in Borat 2 will forever haunt him. [??? didn't see it. Ok. Insert
Sleaze.]
Watching him shove his hands down his pants was pathetic and pitiable. His awkwardness and desperation remain indelible.
But it doesn’t end there. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, hair dye running down Rudy’s face became another unforgettable scene in American political lore.
It presaged what followed. In that moment, you knew that Rudy had gone off the rails, worse that he possessed no limits when it came to Trump.
Yet Giuliani’s latest woes cannot be described as wholly surprising. He always possessed a penchant for drama and a tropism for the transgressive. He loved the opera and his life emerged as operatic. As a prosecutor, he dressed up “undercover”. Then as mayor, he performed onstage in drag with Trump.
All that came with a darker side. The warning signs were there. We just chose to ignore them.
Amid his first campaign for mayor, in 1989, a story broke of a concentration camp survivor, Simon Berger, being held in federal custody, facing a blackboard that read “Arbeit Macht Frei”, the slogan written across the gates of Auschwitz .. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/19/nyregion/giuliani-campaign-tries-to-overcome-stumbling-start.html . Berger would be acquitted. Decades later, Dunphy alleged that Giuliani has a problem with Jews.
Fast forward to May 2000. Giuliani publicly announced that he was leaving Donna Hanover, his second wife. No one was more shocked than Hanover. Rudy had shredded the boundary between public and private.
A year later, Rudy attempted to stretch out his term as mayor beyond its legal limits. Then again, his mother was a fan of Mussolini and his father spent time for armed robbery at Sing Sing, a prison located in upstate New York.
Rudy also sought to make Bernie Kerik, his police commissioner, head of US homeland security. That went badly. Kerik eventually wound up in prison and George W Bush was left to do clean-up on aisle seven.
[ Trump pardons Bernard Kerik: Why the former N.Y. police commissioner spent time in prison Feb. 19, 2020, 8:55 AM AEDT
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-pardons-bernard-kerik-why-former-n-y-police-commissioner-n1138236 ]
During the 2016-17 presidential transition, rumours swirled .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/12/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-secretary-state .. of Giuliani coveting an appointment as secretary of state. That moment never arrived.
There were “whispers from the staff ‘about his health and stability’,” Michael Wolff wrote in Fire and Fury, his 2018 blockbuster.
To be sure, they were the same whispers .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/12/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-secretary-state .. echoed at a pre-inaugural lunch held at a Manhattan steakhouse by veterans of Giuliani’s time at city hall, and those with significant ties to the Trump administration.
For the record, Dunphy’s pleadings are replete with references to Giuliani and alcohol.
Giuliani and Ukraine made headlines, too. He and his buddies played Inspector Clouseau. In the end, Giuliani avoided prosecution, but Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were convicted on federal charges.
[10 Years of Super PACs Show Courts Were Wrong on Corruption Risks
[...]The groups — which are often staffed by former employees of the candidates — throw their money and resources behind candidates or political causes favored by the wealthy donors. The process drowns out the voices of regular voters, giving the superrich a level of access to and influence over the political process that’s impossible for the vast majority of Americans to obtain. Examples abound over the last decade.
P - The most recent high-profile one involves Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Ukrainian-American businessmen who used large contributions to a pro-Trump super PAC to get facetime with the president. They took the opportunity to advocate .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/us/politics/trump-ukraine-donors.html .. for the ouster of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, a move they viewed as benefiting their own interests and those of another Ukrainian government official.
P - Or there’s the case of Jose Susumo Azano Matsura, a Mexican businessman interested in building a waterfront development in San Diego. He was convicted in 2016 of funneling $500,000 in illegal foreign money into a San Diego mayoral race to gain support for the project, using a shell company and super PAC .. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-feds-say-azano-wanted-to-buy-a-mayor-2016jul27-story.html .. to disguise the foreign source of much of the funds.
P - Real estate was also a factor one year later on the east coast, when former Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco pleaded no contest...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171551845]
The political dexterity and judgment that Giuliani once demonstrated has vanished. He is conscious of the decline. “I don’t care about my legacy,” he adds. “I’ll be dead.”
Nearly three years after the 2020 election, Trump refuses to concede and remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. “Giuliani, on the other hand, [is] finished in every conceivable way .. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/13/giuliani-book-review-andrew-kirtzman-mayor-trump ,” wrote Giuliani biographer Andrew Kirtzman.
Along the way, Rudy’s future grows bleaker and more mirthless.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/17/rudy-giuliani-new-york-fall-lloyd-green
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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