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      An Anti-Obesity Drug and Cultural Stigmas

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      More from our inbox:Seeking More Insight Into Republican VotersScandal at Liberty UniversityFree Analysis? Alice Rosati/Trunk ArchiveTo the Editor:Re “Ozempic Can’t Fix What Our Culture Has Broken,” by Tressie McMillan Cottom (column, Oct. 15):By “broken” in the headline, the column implies that we still perpetuate a cultural bias against obese people.Yes, we do stigmatize fat people. I’m fat. What’s also broken, though, is our habit of blaming society for failing to accept us, and medical institutions for failing to fix us, before we take an honest look at our own choices contributing to becoming unhealthy in the first place.Clearly obesity is an epidemic with complex environmental, economic and genetic factors. But for most, physical activity and healthy eating are still nature’s best prevention and remedy. Unlike Ozempic, they’re not a sexy quick fix. They’re work.Maybe healthy eating and activity are just too simple. But viewing ourselves first as victims of unfair systems is also not the answer.Society will always judge. Institutions will always be profit-driven. Blaming is easy. Honest self-assessment and changing habits are hard.Leslie DunnCarmel, Calif.To the Editor:Tressie McMillan Cottom’s fine column covers almost all the issues that I, as a slightly overweight but not obese woman, have with the new weight-loss drugs.But one issue needs to be addressed: What will we think about and how will we treat people (women) who choose not to take this drug, for whatever reason? Maybe it’s because it’s too expensive; maybe because it’s a commitment to a lifetime of taking the drug; maybe it’s just, amazingly, because they are comfortable in their rounded, plush bodies, and don’t desire to change them. Will they face even more opprobrium for that choice than they already do?I’ve spent the last 66 years (and counting) being told that my body isn’t “right,” by doctors, family and society. I’ve just finally come to terms with the fact that I’m stuck in it, and I’m lucky to be able to wake up every morning and get out of bed. Isn’t that enough?Naomi Weisberg SiegelPittsburghTo the Editor:While I agree with the author on many points, one point she didn’t address effectively is that Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs help cover up a main culprit that is causing our obesity: the U.S. food industry and “ultraprocessed foods.”Up until about the 1980s the U.S. didn’t have such a serious obesity problem. Then sugar began being added to everything, along with other things not found in any garden or kitchen.Dr. McMillan Cottom points out that people can be obese and be healthy, but that is not true of most obese people. Ozempic was created because of rampant diabetes in the U.S., the risk of which is increased by eating ultraprocessed foods.Our food industry is killing us with slow deaths from chronic diseases.Deborah JerardMontpelier, Vt.The writer is a pediatrician.Seeking More Insight Into Republican VotersWhy These 11 Republican Voters Like Trump But Might Bail on HimThe group discusses what it would take for a candidate other than Trump to win their vote.To the Editor:Re “Could These Republican Voters Abandon Trump?” (“America in Focus” series, Opinion, Oct. 22):This piece was disturbing but unenlightening about why voters support Donald Trump.Focus groups are supposed to probe for deeper understanding of participants’ views, yet your moderator accepted answers without delving into how participants reached those views.For example, when Cristian said about Donald Trump that “he does get things done,” the moderator could have asked for specifics. It would have been an interesting answer because Mr. Trump actually got very little done.The most glaring omission was Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election. Do participants agree with Mr. Trump? Where do they get their news? Does this issue even matter to them?We have known for months that Mr. Trump maintains strong voter support. We might have gotten some insight into why had the moderators asked more clarifying questions.Ann LaubachAustin, TexasTo the Editor:First, I will applaud both Kristen Soltis Anderson for her skilled questions and moderation, as well as Patrick Healy and the Times Opinion team for sticking with your amazing series, most recently “Could These Republican Voters Abandon Trump?” Fascinating stuff.But just like the infamous CNN town hall with Donald Trump, it leaves an urgent set of questions. Mainly these:1. What about the criminal cases against Mr. Trump?2. What about climate change and the green agenda?Without understanding in depth these 11 Republicans on these topics, I just don’t see how I can evaluate. Of course, I recognize that these individuals have most likely completely dismissed these entire areas of thought. Nonetheless, to understand the situation in my country, I need to see what rationales they are using to do that.George OdellNewburyport, Mass.Scandal at Liberty University Julia Rendleman for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Worst Scandal in American Higher Education,” by David French (column, Oct. 23):Thank you to Mr. French for bringing the truly appalling behavior of Liberty “University” officials to our attention. Yet while he reports that the $37.5 million fine Liberty might face would be “unprecedented,” I can’t help but wonder why the Department of Education wouldn’t strip Liberty of its accreditation altogether, making it ineligible to receive federal money.Such a move is long overdue, and not just because Liberty has lied about campus crime and pressured victims of sexual assault to stay quiet. Liberty, and a host of other Christian institutions, are not colleges in the critical sense. These are places where answers precede questions, where intellectual exploration is hemmed in by theological dogma, and where basic tenets of academic freedom are treated as optional.Why should taxpayers be funding education at such places at all?Steven ConnYellow Springs, OhioThe writer is a professor of history at Miami University.Free Analysis?James AlbonTo the Editor:“How Do You Charge a Friend for a Professional Favor?” (Business, nytimes.com, Oct. 21): Another favor-asking situation that commonly occurs is asking physicians, be they friends or a recent acquaintance at a social event, for free medical opinions or even advice. The many ways of handling those situations would warrant an entire New York Times article.There is another common experience that occurs when one is introduced to someone as a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst or therapist in nonprofessional settings.Such introductions often evoke the question, “Are you analyzing me?” To which I almost always respond, “Not if you’re not paying me.” And we move on.Jack DrescherNew YorkThe writer, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is past president of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry. More

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      Trump’s Lawyers Should Have Known Better

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      At a pivotal moment during one of the Watergate hearings in 1973, President Richard Nixon’s counsel, John Dean, asked a question that still resonates: “How in God’s name could so many lawyers get involved in something like this?”In the aftermath of Nixon’s resignation, the issue posed by Mr. Dean’s bracing question triggered a revolution in the legal profession. With so many lawyers involved in the Watergate criminal scheme, the American Bar Association started requiring law schools to provide ethics instruction or risk losing their accreditation. Exams began testing law students’ knowledge of intricate ethical rules.It wasn’t enough, if the past few weeks are any guide. In Fulton County, Ga., three of former President Donald Trump’s lawyers — Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis — have now pleaded guilty to crimes in service of Mr. Trump’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election and stay in the White House. All three have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the sprawling state RICO case against Mr. Trump. Two other Trump lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, still face criminal charges in the Georgia case. They, along with Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Powell, have also been identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the related federal prosecution of Mr. Trump, which will probably benefit from the guilty pleas in Georgia.The charges in the plea agreements vary, but the underlying story is the same: Fifty years after Watergate, the nation is once again confronted with a president who grossly abused the powers of his office, leading to criminal prosecutions. And once again, that abuse relied heavily on the involvement of lawyers. If Mr. Trump’s 2020 racket was “a coup in search of a legal theory,” as one federal judge put it, these lawyers provided the theory, and the phony facts to back it up. In doing so, they severely tarnished their profession.How in God’s name? The question is no less urgent now than in 1973. Lawyers hold immense power within the American system of government, which depends on their expertise, and their integrity, to function. Those who abuse this power pose an even greater threat to the country than some random Capitol rioter, because we count on them not only to draft and execute the laws but to follow them — to lead by example. Everyone should behave ethically, of course, but despite the “Better-Call-Saul” reputation of so many lawyers, there’s nothing wrong with holding the profession to a higher standard.One can view the guilty pleas by the Trump lawyers as evidence that the system is working as it should. They broke the law, they violated their ethical obligations, and now they are facing the music — not only in the courts, but from their chosen profession. Mr. Giuliani’s New York law license was suspended for his “demonstrably false and misleading statements” on Mr. Trump’s behalf; the District of Columbia’s bar association has recommended he lose his license there for good. Ms. Ellis was censured by Colorado state bar officials for violating the rule against “reckless, knowing, or intentional misrepresentations by attorneys,” and may face more severe consequences in light of her guilty plea.Mr. Eastman, a former law-school dean and one of the key legal architects of Mr. Trump’s bonkers plot to stay in office, is in the final days of his California disbarment trial for ethical violations. Officials there have argued that his conduct was “fundamentally dishonest and intended to obstruct the lawful certification” of President Biden’s victory.All of this is to the good. Careers are rightly ruined over such behavior. It is also the exception to the rule. In the real world, lawyers rarely face any consequences for their legal or ethical transgressions.“It’s a club,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal-ethics expert at New York University School of Law who has studied the profession’s opaque and feckless disciplinary system. “The judges who make the decisions are lawyers in robes. They tend to be sympathetic to the other lawyer.”And it’s hard to gloss over the fact that a disturbing number of experienced attorneys, some of whom once held prestigious posts in government and academia, were willing and eager to tell transparent lies and concoct laughable legal arguments to help a con man stay in the White House against the will of the American people.“Part of the reason Trump had to resort to attorneys to attempt the overthrow of the election was because the military was not available to him,” Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me. Recalling the notorious Dec. 18, 2020, Oval Office meeting, during which the former president openly contemplated ordering the armed forces to seize voting machines, Mr. Eisen said, “It’s a testament to our military leaders, to our military culture, that that door was closed.”The same cannot be said, alas, for America’s legal culture. It’s easy enough to understand why Mr. Trump, who was mentored by the ruthless mob lawyer Roy Cohn, would seek out lawyers who were willing to do whatever he asked, legality and ethics be damned. The more troubling question is how he was able to find so many takers.The obvious answer is the eternal seduction of money and power. Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s foremost constitutional scholars, fell back on that explanation for the choices made by Mr. Chesebro, his former student, referring to him as a “moral chameleon” who was engaged in deeply dishonest lawyering.Related to this is the intense pressure to satisfy the demands of powerful clients, even if it means bringing lawsuits so frivolous that they can result in legal sanctions, as many of Mr. Trump’s lawyers have learned the hard way.There is an important caveat here: Many government and private lawyers in 2020, faced with Mr. Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional demands, resisted the temptation and behaved honorably. From the White House counsel’s office to the Justice Department to top law firms, some key attorneys held the line.“What was one of the determinative factors in Trump’s coup failing?” asked Ian Bassin, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Democracy. “Responsible lawyers refused to participate.”That explains why many of the lawyers caught up in Mr. Trump’s outrageous plot were not what you might call the cream of the crop. They were grifters, shysters, hair-dye-leakers, tapped primarily because Mr. Trump had trouble finding more serious people to make his case. And yet there were still those with more respectable backgrounds, like Mr. Chesebro, who chose to sell their honor to a man devoid of it, and who they should have known wasn’t going to pay them anyway. In the end, they were all smeared with the humiliation of having filed meritless, fact-free cases. With one minor exception, federal and state courts rejected every lawsuit brought on behalf of Mr. Trump.To a degree many people didn’t fully realize until the past few years, the functioning of American government depends on honor. “There are no guarantees in a democracy,” Mr. Eisen said. “Our rule of law is a central part of what defines our democratic system. Ultimately it comes down to whether the majority of people will do the right thing.”When it comes to lawyers, the choices of just a few can make all the difference.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Blind Ambition of Chris Christie

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      Chris Christie’s presidential announcement at a June town hall at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire may not have had the drama of, say, a “West Wing” episode, but it did help clarify our current political moment and its most intriguing character. For over two hours — you could turn it into a mini-series — Mr. Christie, a former New Jersey governor and federal prosecutor, built a case against Donald Trump. To nominate him for the presidency again, Mr. Christie said, would be a moral and political disaster. “Trump made us smaller,” Mr. Christie told his audience as he prowled the stage, explaining that he wanted to go after Mr. Trump for two reasons: “One, he deserves it. And two, it’s the way to win.”It’s a bold premise, but more sound than it might seem. Almost any pollster will tell you that Mr. Trump’s support is soft once you look beyond the MAGA base. A CNN poll conducted in late August found that 44 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning independents said they were seriously worried that Mr. Trump’s legal issues could impair his ability to win the general election. Mr. Christie is the only candidate speaking directly, specifically to this fear. A separate poll found that almost a third of Republican voters who intend to support Mr. Trump said they might still change their minds based on what happens in the months leading up to the first votes being cast.But in national surveys, Mr. Christie is still polling in the low single digits. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, looks increasingly inevitable as the Republican nominee. Even in New Hampshire, a state where moderate voters hold outsize influence, Mr. Christie is languishing in fourth place, at just 9 percent in the polls. Why isn’t his message resonating?There are the obvious explanations: Mr. Trump has advantages as a former president, and his legal troubles have given him an excuse to present himself as an outsider, persecuted by the powers that be; Mr. Christie, meanwhile, is competing in a crowded field, packed with other candidates desperate for the same voters. But there is something deeper at work here, and it holds clues about what it would take to attack Mr. Trump successfully. Because while Mr. Christie may sound like the perfect Trump nemesis — pugnacious, outspoken, loud — he is a uniquely flawed foil for the former president, compromised in ways that blunt his most effective attacks. And though Mr. Christie’s journey through Republican politics is especially colorful — he is from New Jersey, after all — most of the other candidates are running up against similar problems as they struggle to maneuver through a political landscape forever changed by Mr. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More

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      El delicado tema de la bebida de Giuliani

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      Era difícil no ver a Rudolph Giuliani en el Grand Havana Room, el club de puros del Midtown que seguía tratándolo como el rey de Nueva York y que era un imán para simpatizantes y curiosos.En los últimos años, muchos de sus allegados temían que cada vez fuera más difícil no verlo.Durante más de una década la forma de beber de Giuliani había sido un problema, admitieron con tristeza sus amigos. Y, a medida que recuperaba protagonismo durante la presidencia de Donald Trump, cada vez era más complicado ocultarlo.Algunas noches, cuando Giuliani se pasaba de copas, algún colaborador/socio hacía discretamente una seña al resto del club: la mano vacía, inclinada hacia atrás en un gesto de beber y fuera de la vista del exalcalde, por si los demás preferían mantener las distancias. Algunos aliados, al ver a Giuliani bebiendo whisky antes de salir en las entrevistas de Fox News, se escabullían en busca de un televisor, para mirar con tensión sus pobres defensas de Trump.Incluso en lugares menos bulliciosos —la fiesta de presentación de un libro, una cena por el aniversario del 11 de septiembre, una reunión íntima en el propio apartamento de Giuliani— su constante y llamativa embriaguez a menudo asustaba a sus acompañantes.“No es ningún secreto, ni le hago ningún favor si no menciono ese problema, porque lo tiene”, dijo Andrew Stein, expresidente del Concejo Municipal de Nueva York que conoce a Giuliani desde hace décadas. “De hecho, es una de las cosas más tristes que creo que pasan en la política”.Nadie cercano a Giuliani, de 79 años, ha insinuado que su forma de beber pueda excusar o explicar su actual deterioro legal y personal. En agosto fue a Georgia para que le hicieran una ficha policial, no por su comportamiento nocturno ni por sus imprudentes entrevistas por cable, sino por presuntamente hacer mal uso de las leyes que defendía con ahínco cuando era fiscal federal, subvirtiendo así la democracia de un país que antaño lo idolatraba.Sin embargo, según sus amigos, para casi cualquier persona cercana los hábitos de bebida de Giuliani han sido el patrón que ha marcado su caída y no la causa del colapso de su reputación. Esta forma de beber, aseguran, ha sido la evidencia omnipresente de que algo no iba bien con el lugarteniente más incauto del expresidente mucho antes del día de las elecciones de 2020.Ahora, los fiscales en el caso electoral federal contra Trump se enfocan en los hábitos de bebida de Giuliani y muestran interés en saber si el expresidente ignoró lo que sus ayudantes describieron como la embriaguez evidente del exalcalde que en los documentos judiciales es mencionado como “Co-conspirador 1”.Los riesgos legales que comparten han convertido un asunto sobre el que durante mucho tiempo han susurrado antiguos ayudantes del Ayuntamiento, asesores de la Casa Blanca y las altas esferas de la política en una subtrama de investigación en un caso sin precedentes.La oficina de Jack Smith, el fiscal especial, ha interrogado a testigos sobre el consumo de alcohol de Giuliani cuando asesoraba a Trump, incluida la noche de las elecciones, según una persona familiarizada con el tema. Los investigadores de Smith también han preguntado sobre el nivel de conocimiento de Trump sobre el consumo de alcohol de su abogado, mientras trabajaban para anular las elecciones y evitar que Joe Biden fuera certificado como ganador de 2020 casi a cualquier precio. (Un portavoz del fiscal especial declinó hacer comentarios).Giuliani fue uno de los rostros más públicos del esfuerzo de Trump por revertir las elecciones de 2020.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesLas respuestas a esas preguntas podrían complicar cualquier esfuerzo del equipo de Trump para apoyarse en la llamada defensa del consejo del abogado, una estrategia que podría presentarlo como un cliente que solo seguía las indicaciones profesionales de sus abogados. Si esa orientación procedía de alguien que Trump sabía que estaba incapacitado por el alcohol, especialmente cuando muchos otros le dijeron al exmandatario que definitivamente había perdido, su argumento podría debilitarse.En entrevistas y testimonios ante el Congreso, varias personas que se encontraban en la Casa Blanca durante la noche de las elecciones —la noche en la que Giuliani instó a Trump a declarar su victoria, a pesar de los resultados— han dicho que el exalcalde parecía estar borracho, que arrastraba las palabras y olía a alcohol.“El alcalde estaba definitivamente intoxicado”, dijo Jason Miller, uno de los principales asesores de Trump y veterano de la campaña presidencial de Giuliani en 2008, al comité del Congreso que investiga el ataque del 6 de enero en el Capitolio en una declaración a principios del año pasado. “Pero no conozco su nivel de intoxicación cuando habló con el presidente”. (Giuliani negó furiosamente esta versión y condenó en términos despiadados a Miller, que había hablado elogiosamente de él en público).En privado, Trump, que desde hace tiempo se describe como abstemio, ha hablado con sorna de la forma de beber de Giuliani, según una persona familiarizada con sus comentarios. Pero los monólogos de Trump a sus colaboradores pueden revelar una visión del exalcalde que muchos republicanos comparten: atribuye a Giuliani el cambio de la ciudad de Nueva York tras las décadas de 1970 y 1980, de alta criminalidad, y afirma que ha sufrido últimamente sin él al mando. Luego vuelve a lamentarse de la imagen actual de Giuliani.Trump no se detiene en su propio papel en esa trayectoria.En una declaración en la que no se abordaron versiones específicas sobre la bebida de Giuliani o su posible relevancia para los fiscales, Ted Goodman, un asesor político del exalcalde, elogió la carrera de Giuliani y sugirió que estaba siendo difamado porque “tiene el coraje de defender a un hombre inocente” refiriéndose a Trump.“Estoy con el alcalde regularmente desde hace un año, y la idea de que es alcohólico es una mentira absoluta”, dijo Goodman, añadiendo que “se ha puesto de moda en ciertos círculos difamar al alcalde en un esfuerzo de no perder el favor de la llamada ‘alta sociedad’ de Nueva York y del circuito de cócteles de Washington, D. C.”.“El Rudy Giuliani que todos ven hoy”, continuó Goodman, “es el mismo que acabó con la mafia, limpió las calles de Nueva York y consoló a la nación tras el 11-S”.Un portavoz de Trump no respondió a una petición de comentarios.Muchos de los que conocen bien a Giuliani se cuidan de hablar de su vida, y especialmente de su forma de beber, con muchos matices. Dicen que la mayoría de los elementos del actual Giuliani siempre estuvieron ahí, aunque menos visibles.Mucho antes de que el alcohol se convirtiera en un problema, Giuliani tenía inclinación a hacer afirmaciones generalizadas e infundadas de fraude electoral. (“Me robaron las elecciones”, dijo una vez sobre su derrota como alcalde en 1989, aludiendo a supuestas artimañas “en las zonas negras de Brooklyn y en Washington Heights”).Mucho antes de que el alcohol se convirtiera en un problema podía arremeter contra enemigos reales o supuestos. (“Un hombre pequeño en busca de balcón”, dijo en una ocasión Jimmy Breslin, refiriéndose a Giuliani).En las entrevistas con amigos, colaboradores y antiguos ayudantes, el consenso era que, más que transformar por completo a Giuliani, la bebida había acelerado un cambio en su alquimia, al amplificar características que tenía desde hace mucho tiempo como conspiracionismo, credulidad, debilidad por la grandeza.Amante de la ópera —con un sentido operístico de su propia historia—, Giuliani lleva mucho tiempo invitando a sus seguidores, como ha hecho Trump, a procesar sus pruebas personales como propias, arrastrando a las masas a través del tumulto, la tragedia y el divorcio público.Sin embargo, ahora su mundo es pequeño, se estrecha para reflejar sus circunstancias.En agosto, Giuliani ingresó en la cárcel del condado de Fulton, en Atlanta, tras ser acusado en un amplio caso de chantaje contra Trump y sus aliados.  Brynn Anderson/Associated PressSe enfrenta a una acusación de chantaje (entre otras) en Georgia, a un caso de difamación interpuesto por dos trabajadores electorales y a acusaciones de conducta sexual inapropiada por parte de una antigua empleada (él ha dicho que se trató de una relación consentida) y de una antigua ayudante de la Casa Blanca (él ha negado esta versión).Uno de sus abogados ha dicho que Giuliani está “a punto de quebrar”. Otro, Robert Costello, antaño protegido del exalcalde, lo ha demandado por impago de honorarios legales.El círculo de Giuliani se ha reducido debido al alejamiento de sus viejos amigos. Su licencia de abogado fue suspendida en Nueva York. El Grand Havana Room cerró en 2020.La mayoría de los días, Giuliani presenta un programa de radio en Manhattan y se detiene para hacerse selfis en la acera con algún que otro desconocido.La mayoría de las noches, se queda para emitir en directo desde el apartamento que compartió durante mucho tiempo con su tercera exesposa, Judith Giuliani. Recientemente lo ha puesto a la venta.“A Rudy le encanta la ópera”, dijo William Bratton, su primer comisario de policía, a quien Giuliani una vez le regaló una colección de discos de La Bohème. “Pocas óperas tienen un final feliz”.Una derrota aplastante y una preocupación crecienteGiuliani grabando su programa de radio semanal desde su despacho en el Ayuntamiento en mayo de 2000.Ruby Washington/The New York TimesGiuliani siempre fue el tipo de funcionario electo que mantuvo ocupados a los investigadores de la oposición: enredos amorosos, conflictos de personal, un montón de comentarios incendiarios.Pero mientras se preparaba para la vida después del Ayuntamiento —montando una efímera campaña para el Senado en el año 2000 y expresando sus aspiraciones presidenciales— los funcionarios demócratas dijeron que la bebida de Giuliani fue un tema que nunca salió a relucir.Había una razón para eso. Como alcalde, según sus antiguos colaboradores, Giuliani no solía beber en exceso y esperaba que su equipo siguiera su ejemplo.En parte, parece que eso se debía a su inseguridad: criado a las afueras de Manhattan en una familia de medios modestos, Giuliani siempre tuvo cuidado de no perder la cabeza, según un alto funcionario municipal, porque no quería bajar la guardia ante las élites neoyorquinas.Otra consideración era práctica. Giuliani estaba encantado con la naturaleza de la alcaldía a toda hora y se apresuraba a acudir a los escenarios de emergencia para proyectar autoridad y control mucho antes de que le revelara ese instinto al resto del mundo durante los ataques del 11 de septiembre.Nadie duda de que el atentado, y su perfil ascendente, lo reconfiguraron de manera profunda. El 10 de septiembre de 2001, era un caso perdido por su carácter polarizador que lo había llevado a enemistarse con los artistas, además de criticar duramente a los propietarios de hurones y defender a su departamento de policía durante los sonados asesinatos de hombres negros desarmados, incluyendo un episodio en el que Giuliani atacó al fallecido y autorizó la publicación de su expediente de arresto.Pero, a mediados de semana, se había convertido en un emblema mundial de tenaz determinación, llegando a ser considerado el hombre esencial de la ciudad. (Giuliani no tardó en verse a sí mismo de esta manera: a pocas semanas de las elecciones para sucederlo, empezó a presionar a fines de septiembre para aplazar la fecha de entrada en funciones del próximo alcalde y permanecer en el cargo unos meses más. Según George Pataki, exgobernador republicano, le pidió que ampliara su mandato. La idea tuvo pocos adeptos y fue descartada).El prestigio político de Giuliani creció tras los atentados terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001. El año pasado, fue criticado por decir que fue “en cierto modo, el mejor día de mi vida”.Robert F. Bukaty/Associated PressLos años siguientes fueron un torbellino de duelo y celebridad —recuerdos desgarradores, negocios lucrativos, un título honorífico de caballero británico—, una tensión que pareciera que Giuliani todavía lucha por superar.El año pasado fue criticado por calificar el 11 de septiembre como “en cierto modo, el mejor día de mi vida”. También da la impresión de que los recuerdos de ese día lo persiguen, sin importar las puertas que le abrió: en 2018, después de una colonoscopia, contó que le informaron que durante el procedimiento estuvo hablando dormido como si estuviera estableciendo un centro de comando en la zona cero cuando cayeron las torres.Se suponía que la gestión de Giuliani en la crisis impulsaría su campaña presidencial, planeada desde hace tiempo, y lo consagraría como el principal candidato republicano en 2008. Pero no fue así.En cambio, los primeros relatos sobre el consumo excesivo de alcohol por parte de Giuliani se remontan a ese período de fracaso electoral. Aunque cualquier fracaso político puede molestar, quienes conocen a Giuliani dicen que esta, su primera derrota en casi dos décadas, fue especialmente devastadora.Cuando su gran apuesta electoral en Florida acabó en una humillación, Giuliani cayó en lo que Judith Giuliani calificó más tarde como una depresión clínica. Se quedó durante semanas en Mar-a-Lago, el club de Trump en Florida. Los dos no eran muy amigos, pero se conocían desde hacía años a través de la política neoyorquina y el sector inmobiliario.Durante su campaña presidencial en 2008, Giuliani apostó fuerte por tener una buena actuación en Florida, pero terminó de tercero, por lo que renunció un día después.Chip Litherland para The New York TimesPor ese entonces, Giuliani bebía en exceso, según declaraciones de Judith Giuliani a Andrew Kirtzman, autor de Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, publicado el año pasado.“Literalmente se caía de borracho”, dijo Kirtzman en una entrevista, señalando que varios incidentes a lo largo de los años, según la esposa de Giuliani, requirieron atención médica. Kirtzman dijo que llegó a considerar la bebida de Giuliani como “parte de la erosión general de su autodisciplina”. (Giuliani ha dicho que pasó un mes “relajándose” en Mar-a-Lago. El abogado de Judith Giuliani expresó su decisión de no ser entrevistada).Algunos de los que se reunieron con Giuliani después de la campaña quedaron impresionados por su evidente falta de atención, por su desesperación por recuperar lo que había perdido.George Arzt, antiguo ayudante del exalcalde Edward Koch, con quien Giuliani se enfrentó a menudo, recordaba haberlo visto deambular en bucle por un restaurante de los Hamptons, como si esperara a que alguien lo parara, mientras el resto de su grupo cenaba en un salón trasero.“Caminaba de un lado a otro como si quisiera que todo el mundo lo viera, más de una vez”, dijo Arzt. “Solo quería que lo reconocieran”.Las personas cercanas a Giuliani se preocuparon especialmente cuando su tercer matrimonio empezó a resquebrajarse, y se inquietaron por el comportamiento que llegó a mostrar incluso en reuniones nominalmente oficiales, como una cena anual para estrechos colaboradores en torno al 11 de septiembre.Giuliani y su esposa de ese entonces, Judith Giuliani, de pie a la derecha, en 2005. Ella ha dicho que el exalcalde cayó en una depresión y bebió mucho tras perder las elecciones de 2008.Bill Cunningham/The New York TimesEn casi cualquier compañía, Giuliani parecía propenso a montar una escena. En mayo de 2016, estropeó una importante cena con los clientes del bufete de abogados al que se había unido recientemente con una serie comentarios islamófobos mientras estaba borracho, según un libro del año pasado de Geoffrey Berman, quien luego se convertiría en el fiscal federal en Manhattan.En la cena del aniversario del 11 de septiembre de ese año, según recuerda un antiguo colaborador, Giuliani parecía que estaba embriagado mientras pronunciaba unas palabras que fueron de un partidismo despiadado, y un tono discordante para los invitados, dado el acontecimiento que se conmemoraba.Al año siguiente, según recuerda una persona que solía asistir a esos eventos, se suspendió la cena tradicional. Semanas antes del aniversario, Giuliani tuvo que ser ingresado en el hospital por una lesión en la pierna.Después de beber demasiado, diría más tarde Judith Giuliani, el exalcalde había sufrido una caída.Imprudencia, agravios y mayor aislamientoGiuliani y Trump en septiembre de 2020. El exalcalde sigue elogiando al expresidente y le ha pedido ayuda económica.Al Drago para The New York TimesA pocos días del final de la presidencia de Trump ―y con el fantasma de un segundo juicio político acechando tras el motín del Capitolio―, Giuliani no fue ambiguo.A falta de aliados y en busca de otro escenario público, el exalcalde no solo quería representar a Trump ante el Senado. “Tengo que ser su abogado”, le dijo Giuliani a un confidente, según una persona con conocimiento directo de la conversación.Para ese entonces, gran parte de la órbita de Trump estaba convencida de que era una mala idea. Los esfuerzos legales de Giuliani desde las elecciones habían fracasado rotundamente. Fue el causante de luchas internas, destacadas por el correo electrónico que un asociado suyo le envió a los funcionarios de la campaña pidiendo que Giuliani recibiera 20.000 dólares diarios por su trabajo (Giuliani ha dicho que desconocía esa petición). También estaba destinado a ser un testigo potencial.La incursión de Giuliani en la política ucraniana ya había contribuido al primer juicio político de Trump. Y, durante años, algunos funcionarios en la Casa Blanca habían visto la indisciplina e imprevisibilidad de Giuliani ―su red de negocios en el extranjero, sus misteriosos compañeros de viaje y, a menudo, su forma de beber― como un importante lastre.Antes de algunas de las participaciones televisivas de Giuliani, se sabía que los aliados del presidente compartían mensajes sobre el estado nocturno del exalcalde mientras bebía en el Trump International Hotel de Washington, donde Giuliani era tan asiduo que se colocó una placa personalizada en su mesa: “Despacho privado de Rudolph W. Giuliani”. (“Se notaba”, dijo un asesor de Trump sobre las noches en que Giuliani salía al aire después de beber).Giuliani ha dicho que no cree haber concedido nunca una entrevista estando borracho. “Me gusta el whisky”, le dijo a NBC New York en 2021. Y añadió: “No soy alcohólico. Soy funcional. Probablemente funciono más eficazmente que el 90 por ciento de la población”.En el Grand Havana de Nueva York, algunas personas se apartaban cuando las conversaciones casi a gritos de Giuliani lo delataban.“La gente pasaba por ahí después de que empezaba a beber mucho y actuaban como si no estuviera”, dijo el reverendo Al Sharpton, un viejo antagonista y compañero en el club de fumadores. (Sharpton dijo que solía hacer una broma: a veces, tanto él como otras personas que se oponían a Trump, animaban juguetonamente a un mesero para que le llevara más licor a Giuliani antes de que participara en Fox).Pero Sharpton atribuyó los problemas del exalcalde a un vicio diferente, como muchos amigos han hecho en privado.Cuando empezó a perseguir a Trump, me dije: “Este tipo es adicto a las cámaras”, recordó Sharpton. Y añadió que Giuliani “tenía que conocer los aspectos negativos de Donald Trump”. En poco tiempo, observó Sharpton, Giuliani “estaba con tipos a los que habría metido en la cárcel cuando era fiscal”.Es posible que Giuliani parezca nostálgico de los días en que tenía tanta influencia, y se muestre dispuesto a saldar viejas cuentas y destruir a nuevos adversarios, mientras insiste en que se le niega lo que le corresponde.El mes pasado, al reflexionar sobre la muerte de su segundo comisionado de policía, Howard Safir, Giuliani se desvió repentinamente durante su transmisión en directo y divagó al estilo de Trump, aprovechando la ocasión para desprestigiar al predecesor de Safir, Bratton, con quien se enemistó.“Quizá el hecho de que Bratton fuera a Elaine’s todas las noches y se emborrachara lo ayudó”, dijo Giuliani. (“Si el programa no fuera tan triste, sería divertidísimo”, dijo Bratton a través de un mensaje de texto).Otras quejas de Giuliani son más actuales. Ha reclamado en repetidas oportunidades porque Fox News ha dejado de invitarlo a sus programas, a pesar de que se esforzó por sacar a la luz los escándalos que rodeaban a Hunter Biden ―y fue vilipendiado por eso― mucho antes de que se convirtieran en un tema importante en los debates republicanos.Una participación televisiva de Giuliani que fue proyectada durante una audiencia celebrada el año pasado por el comité de la Cámara de Representantes que investigaba los disturbios del Capitolio y los acontecimientos que los rodearon.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn 2021, las autoridades federales registraron el domicilio de Giuliani y confiscaron sus dispositivos en el marco de una investigación que originó titulares vergonzosos pero que, en última instancia, no ocasionaron cargos, lo que exacerbó aún más su sentimiento de persecución.También es posible que parezca herido, porque algunos amigos del pasado se han alejado.“Se siente traicionado por algunos de los amigos que solían ser sus amigos”, dijo John Catsimatidis, el multimillonario político propietario de la emisora local que emite el programa de radio de Giuliani. “¿Te gustaría tener a esos amigos como amigos?”.Aunque Giuliani no parece incluir a Trump en esta categoría ―sigue adulando públicamente a un hombre al que le ha pedido ayuda económica―, su relación ha sufrido algunas tensiones. En su último fin de semana en el cargo, Trump criticó a Giuliani en una reunión privada, según una persona informada al respecto.El mes pasado, el club de Trump en Bedminster, Nueva Jersey, fue el lugar de una recaudación de fondos para la defensa legal de Giuliani.Pero días después, en el aniversario del 11 de septiembre, Trump no dijo una sola palabra en público sobre el neoyorquino más asociado con la tragedia.Giuliani centró sus objeciones en otro punto, al comentar sobre el sitio que se le había asignado entre los dignatarios en la ceremonia. “No nos ponen demasiado cerca a los que tuvimos algo que ver con el 11 de septiembre”, dijo.Al valorar su propio legado esa misma semana en su transmisión en directo, en la que se definió como el alcalde de Nueva York más exitoso de la historia, Giuliani aún parecía consumido por la posición que ocupa ahora en su ciudad.También sonaba resignado.“Esta torcida ciudad demócrata”, dijo, “nunca tendrá una placa para mí”.Olivia Bensimon More

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      Giuliani’s Drinking Has Trump Prosecutors’ Attention in Federal Election Case

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      Rudolph W. Giuliani had always been hard to miss at the Grand Havana Room, a magnet for well-wishers and hangers-on at the Midtown cigar club that still treated him like the king of New York.In recent years, many close to him feared, he was becoming even harder to miss.For more than a decade, friends conceded grimly, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking had been a problem. And as he surged back to prominence during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, it was getting more difficult to hide it.On some nights when Mr. Giuliani was overserved, an associate discreetly signaled the rest of the club, tipping back his empty hand in a drinking motion, out of the former mayor’s line of sight, in case others preferred to keep their distance. Some allies, watching Mr. Giuliani down Scotch before leaving for Fox News interviews, would slip away to find a television, clenching through his rickety defenses of Mr. Trump.Even at less rollicking venues — a book party, a Sept. 11 anniversary dinner, an intimate gathering at Mr. Giuliani’s own apartment — his consistent, conspicuous intoxication often startled his company.“It’s no secret, nor do I do him any favors if I don’t mention that problem, because he has it,” said Andrew Stein, a former New York City Council president who has known Mr. Giuliani for decades. “It’s actually one of the saddest things I can think about in politics.”No one close to Mr. Giuliani, 79, has suggested that drinking could excuse or explain away his present legal and personal disrepair. He arrived for a mug shot in Georgia in August not over rowdy nightlife behavior or reckless cable interviews but for allegedly abusing the laws he defended aggressively as a federal prosecutor, subverting the democracy of a nation that once lionized him.Yet to almost anyone in proximity, friends say, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking has been the pulsing drumbeat punctuating his descent — not the cause of his reputational collapse but the ubiquitous evidence, well before Election Day in 2020, that something was not right with the former president’s most incautious lieutenant.Now, prosecutors in the federal election case against Mr. Trump have shown an interest in the drinking habits of Mr. Giuliani — and whether the former president ignored what his aides described as the plain inebriation of the former mayor referred to in court documents as “Co-Conspirator 1.”Their entwined legal peril has turned a matter long whispered about by former City Hall aides, White House advisers and political socialites into an investigative subplot in an unprecedented case.The office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, has questioned witnesses about Mr. Giuliani’s alcohol consumption as he was advising Mr. Trump, including on election night, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Smith’s investigators have also asked about Mr. Trump’s level of awareness of his lawyer’s drinking as they worked to overturn the election and prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr. from being certified as the 2020 winner at almost any cost. (A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.)Mr. Giuliani was one of the most public faces of Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe answers to those prompts could complicate any efforts by Mr. Trump’s team to lean on a so-called advice-of-counsel defense, a strategy that could portray him as a client merely taking professional cues from his lawyers. If such guidance came from someone whom Mr. Trump knew to be compromised by alcohol, especially when many others told Mr. Trump definitively that he had lost, his argument could weaken.In interviews and in testimony to Congress, several people at the White House on election night — the evening when Mr. Giuliani urged Mr. Trump to declare victory despite the results — have said that the former mayor appeared to be drunk, slurring and carrying an odor of alcohol.“The mayor was definitely intoxicated,” Jason Miller, a top Trump adviser and a veteran of Mr. Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign, told the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in a deposition early last year. “But I do not know his level of intoxication when he spoke with the president.” (Mr. Giuliani furiously denied this account and condemned Mr. Miller, who had spoken glowingly of him in public, in vicious terms.)Privately, Mr. Trump, who has long described himself as a teetotaler, has spoken derisively about Mr. Giuliani’s drinking, according to a person familiar with his remarks. But Mr. Trump’s monologues to associates can betray a layered view of the former mayor, one that many Republicans share: He credits Mr. Giuliani with turning around New York City after the high-crime 1970s and 1980s and contends that it has suffered lately without him in charge. Then he returns to a lament about Mr. Giuliani’s image today.Mr. Trump does not dwell on his own role in that trajectory.In a statement that did not address specific accounts about Mr. Giuliani’s drinking or its potential relevance to prosecutors, Ted Goodman, a political adviser to the former mayor, praised Mr. Giuliani’s career and suggested he was being maligned because “he has the courage to defend an innocent man” in Mr. Trump.“I’m with the mayor on a regular basis for the past year, and the idea that he is an alcoholic is a flat-out lie,” Mr. Goodman said, adding that it had “become fashionable in certain circles to smear the mayor in an effort to stay in the good graces of New York’s so-called ‘high society’ and the Washington, D.C., cocktail circuit.”“The Rudy Giuliani you all see today,” Mr. Goodman continued, “is the same man who took down the mafia, cleaned up the streets of New York and comforted the nation following 9/11.”A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.Many who know Mr. Giuliani best are careful to discuss his life, and especially his drinking, with considerable nuance. Most elements of today’s Mr. Giuliani were always there, they say, if less visible.Long before alcohol became a concern, Mr. Giuliani was prone to sweeping, unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. (“They stole that election from me,” he once said of his 1989 mayoral loss, alluding to supposed chicanery “in the Black parts of Brooklyn and in Washington Heights.”)Long before alcohol became a concern, he could be quick to lash out at enemies real or perceived. (“A small man in search of a balcony,” Jimmy Breslin once said of him.)In interviews with friends, associates and former aides, the consensus was that, more than wholly transforming Mr. Giuliani, his drinking had accelerated a change in his existing alchemy, amplifying qualities that had long burbled within him: conspiracism, gullibility, a weakness for grandeur.A lover of opera — with a suitably operatic sense of his own story — Mr. Giuliani has long invited supporters, as Mr. Trump has, to process his personal trials as their own, tugging the masses along through tumult, tragedy, public divorce.Yet there is a smallness to his world now, a narrowing to reflect his circumstances.In August, Mr. Giuliani was booked at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta after he was charged in a sprawling racketeering case against Mr. Trump and his allies. Brynn Anderson/Associated PressHe faces a racketeering charge (among others) in Georgia, a defamation case brought by two election workers and accusations of sexual misconduct from a former employee (he has said this was a consensual relationship) and a former White House aide (he has denied this account).One of his lawyers has said Mr. Giuliani is “close to broke.” Another, Robert Costello, once a protégé of the former mayor’s, is suing him for unpaid legal fees.Mr. Giuliani’s circle has shrunk as old friends have fallen away. His law license was suspended in New York. The Grand Havana Room closed in 2020.Most days, Mr. Giuliani hosts a radio show in Manhattan, stopping for sidewalk selfies with the occasional stranger.Most nights, he stays in for a livestream from the apartment he long shared with his third ex-wife, Judith Giuliani. It recently went up for sale.“Rudy loves opera,” said William J. Bratton, his first police commissioner, to whom Mr. Giuliani once gave a CD collection of “La Bohème” as a gift. “Few operas end in a happy place.”A crushing defeat and a growing concernMr. Giuliani recording his weekly radio show from his office at City Hall in May 2000.Ruby Washington/The New York TimesMr. Giuliani was always the kind of elected official who kept opposition researchers busy: romantic entanglements, personnel conflicts, a trail of incendiary remarks.But as he prepared for life after City Hall — mounting a short-lived Senate campaign in 2000 and harboring visions of the presidency — Democratic operatives say Mr. Giuliani’s drinking was one issue that never came up.There was a reason for that. As mayor, former aides said, Mr. Giuliani did not generally drink to excess and expected his team to follow his lead.Part of this seemed to flow from insecurity: Reared outside Manhattan in a family of modest means, Mr. Giuliani always took care to keep his wits about him, one senior city official said, because he did not want to lower his guard in view of New York’s elites.Another consideration was practical. Mr. Giuliani thrilled to the all-hours nature of the mayoralty, hustling toward scenes of emergency to project authority and control long before 9/11 showcased this instinct to the wider world, and he was vigilant about staying ready.No one doubts that the attack, and his ascendant profile, profoundly reshaped him. On Sept. 10, 2001, he was the polarizing lame duck who had antagonized artists, warred gratuitously with ferret owners and defended his police department through high-profile killings of unarmed Black men — including one episode in which Mr. Giuliani attacked the deceased and authorized the release of his arrest record.By midweek, he had become a global emblem of tenacious resolve, held up as the city’s essential man. (Mr. Giuliani quickly came to see himself this way, too: With the election to succeed him weeks away, he began pushing by late September to postpone the next mayor’s start date and remain in office for a few more months, even asking the Republican governor, George Pataki, to extend his term, according to Mr. Pataki. The idea had few takers and was abandoned.)Mr. Giuliani’s political standing rose after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Last year, he faced criticism for calling that day “in some ways, you know, the greatest day of my life.”Robert F. Bukaty/Associated PressThe years that followed were a swirl of mourning and celebrity — wrenching remembrances, lucrative business ventures, an honorary British knighthood — a tension that Mr. Giuliani can still sound as if he is struggling to reconcile.He faced criticism last year for calling Sept. 11 “in some ways, you know, the greatest day of my life.” He has also seemed haunted by it, no matter what doors it opened: After a colonoscopy in 2018, he told people then, he was informed that he had been talking in his sleep as if he was establishing a command center at ground zero when the towers fell.Mr. Giuliani’s stewardship in crisis was supposed to hypercharge his long-planned presidential campaign, enshrining him as the early Republican front-runner in 2008. It did not.Instead, the earliest accounts of Mr. Giuliani’s excessive drinking date to this period of campaign failure. Though any political flop can sting, those who know Mr. Giuliani say that this one, his first loss in nearly two decades, was especially shattering.When his big electoral bet on Florida ended in humiliation, Mr. Giuliani fell into what Judith Giuliani later called a clinical depression. He stayed for weeks afterward at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Florida. The two were not especially close friends but had known each other for years through New York politics and real estate.During his presidential run in 2008, Mr. Giuliani bet heavily on a strong performance in Florida, but finished third and dropped out a day later. Chip Litherland for The New York TimesAround this time, Mr. Giuliani was drinking heavily, according to comments Ms. Giuliani made to Andrew Kirtzman, the author of “Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor,” published last year.“Literally falling-down drunk,” Mr. Kirtzman said in an interview, noting that several incidents over the years, in Ms. Giuliani’s telling, required medical attention. Mr. Kirtzman said that he came to consider Mr. Giuliani’s drinking “part of the overall erosion of his self-discipline.” (Mr. Giuliani has said he spent a month “relaxing” at Mar-a-Lago. Ms. Giuliani declined through her lawyer to be interviewed.)Some who encountered Mr. Giuliani after the campaign were struck by how transparently he missed the attention he once commanded, how desperate he seemed to recapture what he had lost.George Arzt, a longtime aide to former Mayor Edward I. Koch, with whom Mr. Giuliani often clashed, recalled watching Mr. Giuliani wander on a loop through a restaurant in the Hamptons, as if waiting to be stopped by anyone, while the rest of his party dined in a back room.“He would walk back and forth like he wanted everyone to see him, more than once,” Mr. Arzt said. “He just wanted to be recognized.”People close to Mr. Giuliani particularly worried about him as his third marriage began to fray, growing unnerved at snapshots of his behavior even at nominally sanctified gatherings, like an annual dinner for close associates around Sept. 11.Mr. Giuliani and his wife at the time, Judith Giuliani, standing at right, in 2005. She has said he fell into a depression and drank heavily after his 2008 election loss.Bill Cunningham/The New York TimesIn almost any company, Mr. Giuliani seemed liable to make a scene. In May 2016, he derailed a major client dinner at the law firm he had recently joined with a fire hose of Islamophobic remarks while drunk, according to a book last year by Geoffrey S. Berman, who would later become the United States attorney in Manhattan.At the 9/11 anniversary dinner that year, a former aide remembered, Mr. Giuliani appeared intoxicated as he delivered remarks that were blisteringly partisan — and tonally jarring for guests, given the event being commemorated.The next year, a longtime attendee recalled, the traditional dinner was scrapped. Weeks before the anniversary, Mr. Giuliani had been rushed to the hospital with a leg injury.After drinking too much, Ms. Giuliani would say later, the former mayor had taken a fall.Recklessness, grievance and increased isolationMr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump in September 2020. The former mayor still praises the former president, and has appealed to him for financial help. Al Drago for The New York TimesWith a few days left in the Trump presidency — and the specter of a second impeachment trial looming after the Capitol riot — Mr. Giuliani was unambiguous.Short on allies and angling for another public showcase, the former mayor did not just want to represent Mr. Trump before the Senate: “I need to be his lawyer,” Mr. Giuliani told a confidant, according to a person with direct knowledge of the exchange.By then, much of Mr. Trump’s orbit was quite certain that this was a bad idea. Mr. Giuliani’s legal efforts since the election had roundly failed. He was the source of infighting, highlighted by an associate’s email to campaign officials asking that Mr. Giuliani be paid $20,000 a day for his work. (Mr. Giuliani has said he was unaware of the request.) He was also destined to be a potential witness.Mr. Giuliani’s foray into Ukrainian politics had already helped get Mr. Trump impeached the first time. And for years, some in the White House had viewed Mr. Giuliani’s indiscipline and unpredictability — his web of foreign business affairs, his mysterious travel companions and, often enough, his drinking — as a significant liability.Before some of Mr. Giuliani’s television appearances, allies of the president were known to share messages about the former mayor’s nightly condition as he imbibed at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where Mr. Giuliani was such a regular that a custom plaque was placed at his table: “Rudolph W. Giuliani Private Office.” (“You could tell,” one Trump adviser said of the nights when Mr. Giuliani went on the air after drinking.)Mr. Giuliani has said he does not think he ever gave an interview while drunk. “I like Scotch,” he told NBC New York in 2021, adding: “I’m not an alcoholic. I’m a functioning — I probably function more effectively than 90 percent of the population.”At the Grand Havana in New York, some steered clear when Mr. Giuliani’s near-shouting conversations gave him away.“People would walk by after he started drinking a lot and act like he wasn’t there,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime antagonist and a fellow member at the cigar club. (Mr. Sharpton said he did indulge in a running gag: He and others who opposed Mr. Trump sometimes playfully encouraged a server to double Mr. Giuliani’s liquor orders before he went on Fox.)But Mr. Sharpton attributed the former mayor’s troubles to a different vice, as many friends have privately.“When he started running after Trump, I said, ‘This guy’s addicted to cameras,’” Mr. Sharpton recalled, adding that Mr. Giuliani “had to know the negative sides of Donald Trump.” Before long, Mr. Sharpton observed, Mr. Giuliani was “running with guys that he would have put in jail when he was U.S. attorney.”Mr. Giuliani can seem wistful now about the days when he held such influence — and fanatical about settling old scores and destroying new adversaries, forever insisting that he is denied his due.Reflecting on the death last month of his second police commissioner, Howard Safir, Mr. Giuliani swerved suddenly during his livestream into Trump-style projection, using the occasion to smear Mr. Safir’s predecessor, Mr. Bratton, with whom Mr. Giuliani fell out.“Maybe Bratton going to Elaine’s every night and getting drunk actually helped,” Mr. Giuliani said. (“If the show wasn’t so sad, it would be hilarious,” Mr. Bratton said via text.)Other complaints from Mr. Giuliani have been more current. Fox News stopped inviting him on, he has groused repeatedly, even though he was working to highlight scandals surrounding Hunter Biden — and was vilified for it — well before they became a prime Republican talking point.A television clip of Mr. Giuliani was shown during a hearing last year by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot and the events surrounding it. Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Giuliani’s home was searched, and his devices were seized, by federal authorities in 2021 as part of an investigation that produced embarrassing headlines and, ultimately, no charges, further inflaming his sense of persecution.He can seem wounded that some past friends have drifted away.“He feels betrayed by some of the friends who used to be his friends,” said John Catsimatidis, the billionaire political fixture who owns the local station that carries Mr. Giuliani’s radio show. “How’d you like to have those friends as friends?”While Mr. Giuliani does not seem to place Mr. Trump in this category — still publicly fawning over a man to whom he has appealed for financial help — their relationship has endured some strain. On Mr. Trump’s final weekend in office, he excoriated Mr. Giuliani in a private meeting, according to a person briefed on it.Last month, Mr. Trump’s club in Bedminster, N.J., was the site of a fund-raiser for Mr. Giuliani’s legal defense.But days later, on the Sept. 11 anniversary, Mr. Trump did not say a public word about the New Yorker most associated with the tragedy.Mr. Giuliani focused his objections elsewhere, remarking often on his allotted location among dignitaries at the memorial. “They don’t put those of us who had anything to do with Sept. 11 too close,” he said.Appraising his own legacy later that week on his livestream, where he called himself New York’s most successful mayor in history, Mr. Giuliani still seemed consumed by his standing now in his city.He also sounded resigned.“This crooked Democratic city,” he said, “would never have a plaque for me.”Olivia Bensimon More

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      G.O.P. Eyes Bribery and Abuse of Power Impeachment Charges for Biden

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      The first hearing in the impeachment inquiry comes as Republicans are grasping for evidence tying President Biden to his son’s foreign business dealings.Top House Republicans are eyeing potential impeachment charges of bribery and abuse of power against President Biden, according to senior House officials familiar with their plans, as they push forward with an inquiry that seeks to tie him to his son’s foreign business dealings.Building up to the inquiry’s first hearing scheduled for Thursday, Republicans have stepped up their efforts to cast suspicion on Mr. Biden, releasing material they characterized as incriminating but which contained no proof of wrongdoing. The lawmakers have been grasping for months for evidence to fuel their impeachment case, which has yet to provide a basis for either potential charge they are considering.On Wednesday, they released records of wire transfers from a Chinese businessman to Hunter Biden in 2019 that listed his father’s Wilmington, Del., address, suggesting that was an indication that the elder Biden had profited off those transactions. But the home was Hunter Biden’s primary residence at the time.Later in the day, a powerful panel voted to release 700 more pages from the confidential tax investigation into Hunter Biden, including an affidavit from an I.R.S. agent who concluded that he and his business associates received potentially more than $19 million in foreign income, but who makes no allegation the income was illegal.The documents also include an email in which a prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware prohibited investigators from mentioning President Biden in a proposed search warrant in August 2020. Republicans argue that shows the Justice Department was biased in favor of Mr. Biden, but the warrant was being prepared months before the elections, during a period when the agency’s longstanding policy is to avoid taking high-profile actions against any political candidate.The G.O.P. has struggled so far to link Hunter Biden’s business activity to the president or get anywhere close to revealing proof of high crimes and misdemeanors. Despite their review of more than 12,000 pages of bank records and 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, none of the material released so far shows any payment to his father.Leaders of the three panels carrying out the inquiry — the Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means Committees — hope to accumulate evidence that the elder Biden abused his office, accepted bribes or both, according to the officials familiar with it, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details.The officials emphasized that the inquiry might never result in impeachment charges if the evidence they compile does not support such charges — or any other. And Republicans are privately cognizant that they currently lack enough support within their ranks to push charges through the House, and that any charges would be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.For Thursday’s hearing before the Oversight Committee — the first since Speaker Kevin McCarthy, under pressure from his right flank, announced the inquiry — Republicans have booked a trio of conservative legal analysts to opine about the Bidens and the law. The analysts are not, however, in a position to present new facts in the case.The Oversight panel is considered the lead committee, according to the officials, and will investigate any allegations of corruption against the president and his family. The Judiciary Committee will focus on the Justice Department, while Ways and Means will handle any sensitive tax information pertinent to the inquiry.Democrats have criticized Republicans for moving forward with an impeachment inquiry in the absence of any incriminating evidence against the president.“Haven’t we already been doing this for the last nine months?” asked Representative Jared Moskowitz, Democrat of Florida and a member of the Oversight Committee, in an interview. “They don’t have anything on Joe Biden.”With divisions among House Republicans threatening to lead to a government shutdown this weekend, Mr. McCarthy has explicitly tried to leverage his impeachment inquiry to persuade hard-right lawmakers to keep the government open. Thursday’s hearing is — at least in part — an attempt to make the case to right-wing lawmakers and voters that Republican-led committees are making progress in their investigation of Mr. Biden, the chief political rival of former President Donald J. Trump.Speaker Kevin McCarthy has explicitly tried to leverage his impeachment inquiry to convince hard-right lawmakers to keep the government open.Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times“It’s hard to grasp the complete derangement of this moment,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland and the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee. “Three days before they’re set to shut down the United States government, Republicans launch a baseless impeachment drive against President Biden. No one can figure out the logic of either course of action.”Republicans are plowing ahead anyway. The inquiry is expected to stretch on for weeks, and Republicans believe it is beneficial to them politically to keep it active and grabbing news headlines to serve as a counterweight to the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump and the 91 felony counts he faces.Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the Oversight Committee, said in an interview that his staff would continue to work on the impeachment inquiry even during a government shutdown when many nonessential workers face furloughs.“We’ve got five staffers working on this, and they’re very passionate about it,” he said.On Tuesday, he said his committee had obtained two bank wires totaling $260,000 that demonstrate that Hunter Biden received money from Chinese nationals in which his address was listed as the Wilmington, Del., home of his father.Representative James R. Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, said his staff would continue to work on the impeachment inquiry even during a government shutdown.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAt a news conference, Mr. McCarthy said the records showed that Mr. Biden “lied” when he claimed his family had not received money from China.Hunter Biden’s legal team said there was nothing nefarious in the transaction. The payment described by Mr. Comer was from a business partner for legitimate purposes, and Hunter Biden listed his father’s address because that was his primary residence at the time, his lawyer said.“We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda,” said Abbe Lowell, the younger Biden’s lawyer.Democrats have been planning a counteroffensive to the inquiry. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, met privately with Democratic lawmakers who led the two impeachments of Mr. Trump to discuss their strategy of how to defend Mr. Biden. One point of debate at the meeting: whether Democrats should attempt to defend Hunter Biden’s conduct or essentially cast him aside and make the case that while the son may have engaged in wrongdoing, his father had nothing to do with it.The Justice Department has investigated Hunter Biden’s taxes and international business dealings for five years and indicted him on felony gun charges stemming from his purchase of a firearm while being a drug user.Republicans have been investigating the unproven allegations against Mr. Biden with little success for years. Functionally, the House inquiry gives them no new investigative powers. But, they argue, it strengthens their argument in case the Bidens should fight them in court. Mr. Comer said he plans to issue subpoenas for the personal bank records of Hunter Biden, the president’s brother James Biden, and, eventually, the president himself. More

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      Groundswell of Democrats Builds Calling on Menendez to Resign

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      The New Jersey Democrat’s indictment last week initially prompted only a handful of calls from within his party for his exit. But on Tuesday, the dam broke, led by colleagues facing re-election next year.A stampede of Senate Democrats led by some of the party’s most endangered incumbents rushed forward on Tuesday calling for Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey to resign, a day after he defiantly vowed to fight federal corruption charges and predicted he would be exonerated.Even as Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, defended Mr. Menendez as a “dedicated public servant” and refused to publicly move to push him out, the drumbeat for Mr. Menendez to step down grew from within his ranks. That left Mr. Schumer in a difficult position, caught between his role as the leader and defender of all Senate Democrats and the political imperative of cutting loose a member of his caucus who had become a political liability in an already difficult slog to keep the party’s Senate majority.The most notable call for Mr. Menendez to go came from Senator Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey who has long been a close friend and fierce defender of Mr. Menendez. Mr. Booker, who testified as a character witness for Mr. Menendez during his first corruption trial, said the “shocking allegations of corruption” were “hard to reconcile with the person I know.”He added: “I believe stepping down is best for those Senator Menendez has spent his life serving.”His statement came amid a flood of calls by Democrats running for re-election next year in politically competitive states, who appeared eager to distance themselves from Mr. Menendez. The third-term senator was indicted last week on bribery charges in what prosecutors alleged was a sordid scheme that included abusing his power as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit Egypt.The most notable call from Mr. Menendez to go came from Senator Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey who has long been a close friend of Mr. Menendez.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesSenator Jon Tester of Montana, who is running in a state that former President Donald J. Trump won by more than 16 points in 2020, said Mr. Menendez needed to go “for the sake of the public’s faith in the U.S. Senate.” Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a onetime bellwether state that has shifted sharply to the right over the past two presidential election cycles, said Mr. Menendez had “broken the public trust and should resign from the U.S. Senate.”And Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who launched her re-election bid in a battleground state by predicting that her race would decide control of the Senate, said the corruption charges were a “distraction that undermines the bipartisan work we need to do in the Senate for the American people.”Democrats view the fact that they were able to get all of their vulnerable senators to run for re-election in 2024 as their biggest source of strength in their quest to hold onto their slim majority next year.By noon, those vulnerable Democrats had helped open the floodgates, with more than a dozen Democratic senators from across the country joining them and rushing to release statements calling for Mr. Menendez’s resignation ahead of their weekly lunch in the Capitol. By the end of the day, at least 24 Democratic senators — almost half the caucus — had reached the conclusion that their colleague needed to go.Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the head of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm who is leading the effort to keep the party’s hold on the majority, was among those calling on him to quit. And New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, said on Tuesday that she agreed with Mr. Booker that Mr. Menendez should step down.Those voices weighing in raised questions about what path Mr. Schumer might take down the line.Mr. Booker often described Mr. Menendez, the senior senator, as a friend, ally and mentor. But the nature of the charges, along with the political landscape of the state, appeared to have played a role in changing his mind.Even before the latest indictment was announced, opinion polls indicated that public support for Mr. Menendez was waning, said Patrick Murray, director of the Polling Institute at Monmouth University in New Jersey.During Mr. Menendez’s first criminal indictment, “New Jersey voters, and particularly Democrats, were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Mr. Murray said. “This time, public opinion is different.”The floodgates may have opened on Tuesday, but it took Democrats in the Senate days to get around to condemning their colleague.On Friday, Mr. Menendez stepped down temporarily as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, under the rules put in place by his own party, but Mr. Schumer defended his right to remain in office. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said any decision about Mr. Menendez’s future in the Senate was “going to be up to him and the Senate leadership.”A lone Democratic voice over the weekend adding to calls for Mr. Menendez to go was Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who hails from another battleground state. He vowed to return campaign donations from Mr. Menendez’s leadership PAC in envelopes stuffed with $100 bills — an apparent reference to the indictment against Mr. Menendez, which said investigators found jackets and envelopes stuffed with cash at his home, allegedly containing the fruits of the senator’s corrupt dealings.Mr. Fetterman, who has come under criticism from his colleagues for pressing for a dress code change in the fusty Senate to accommodate his shorts-and-hoodie uniform, on Tuesday said he hoped his Democratic colleagues would “fully address the alleged systematic corruption of Senator Menendez with the same vigor and velocity they brought to concerns about our dress code.”Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker from California, on Monday night also weighed in on the Menendez scandal, helping wedge open the door for detractors, saying on MSNBC that it would “probably be a good idea” for him to resign.Some Republicans, on the other hand, jumped to Mr. Menendez’s defense, arguing that Democrats should have to weather the political consequences of his conduct.“He should be judged by jurors and New Jersey’s voters, not by Democratic politicians who now view him as inconvenient to their hold on power,” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, wrote on X, previously Twitter.Speaker Kevin McCarthy, however, said on Saturday that Mr. Menendez should go, arguing that the case laid out by prosecutors was “pretty black and white.” In contrast, Mr. McCarthy, a California Republican, has defended one of his own indicted members, Representative George Santos of New York, saying that it was not up to him to decide whether he should represent his district.“You know why I’m standing by him? Because his constituents voted for him,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Santos in January. Mr. Menendez won re-election in 2018 by a 12-point margin.On Tuesday, Mr. McCarthy appeared to change his position on Mr. Menendez, telling reporters that “it could be his choice with what he wants to do.”Christopher Maag More

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      Does Robert Menendez Have Enough Teflon to Survive Again?

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      Senator Menendez, who has defeated prosecutors and political challengers, faces his sternest test yet in his federal indictment in Manhattan.In a state long attuned to the drumbeat of political corruption — salacious charges, furious denials, explosive trials — Senator Robert Menendez has often registered as the quintessential New Jersey politician.He successfully avoided charges in one case, and after federal prosecutors indicted him in another, he got off after a mistrial in 2017. “To those who were digging my political grave,” Mr. Menendez warned then with characteristic bravado, “I know who you are and I won’t forget you.”Six years later, he is once again on the brink, battling for his political life after federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed a jarring new indictment on Friday charging the powerful Democratic senator and his wife in a garish bribery scheme involving a foreign power, piles of cash and gold bars.A defiant Mr. Menendez, 69, immediately vowed to clear his name from what he cast as just more smears by vengeful prosecutors. A top adviser said that he would also continue running for re-election in 2024, when he is trying to secure a fourth full term.But as details of the case quickly spread through Trenton and Washington — including images of an allegedly ill-begotten Mercedes-Benz convertible and cash bribes hidden in closets — it was clear Mr. Menendez may be confronting the gravest political challenge in a career that started 49 years ago in the shadow of New York City.Calls for his resignation mounted from ethics groups, Republicans and even longtime Democratic allies who stood by him last time, including the governor, state party chairman and the leaders of the legislature. And party strategists and elected officials were already openly speculating that one or more of a group of ambitious, young Democrats representing the state in Congress could mount a primary campaign against him.“The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state,” said Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat. “Therefore, I am calling for his immediate resignation.”Representatives Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell, two of the state’s longest serving Democrats who have served alongside Mr. Menendez for decades, joined them later. So did Representatives Mikie Sherrill and Andy Kim, two of the younger representatives considered possible primary challengers or replacements should the senator step down.For now, Mr. Menendez appeared to be on firmer footing among his colleagues in the Senate, including party leaders who could force his hand. They accepted his temporary resignation as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, but did not ask him to leave office.In a statement, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, called Mr. Menendez “a dedicated public servant” and said that his colleague had “a right to due process and a fair trial.”The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, right, urged against a rash judgment, saying Mr. Menendez had a “right to due process and a fair trial.”Erin Schaff/The New York TimesCalls for his ouster seemed to only embolden Mr. Menendez, who spent part of Friday afternoon trying to rally allies by phone. “It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat,” he wrote in a fiery retort to Democrats who broke with him. “I am not going anywhere.”The electoral stakes were high, and not just for Mr. Menendez.Though he had yet to formally answer the charges in court, some party strategists were already gauging the possibility that Mr. Menendez could be scheduled to stand trial in the middle of the campaign — an unwelcome distraction for Democratic candidates across the nation.Republicans were already using the indictment to attack the party. “Democrats covered for Menendez the first time he got indicted for corruption,” said Philip Letsou, a spokesman for the Senate Republican campaign committee. “It would be a shame if they did so again.”Democrats have not lost a Senate race in New Jersey since the 1970s. But allowing Mr. Menendez to stay in office could at the least force the party to spend heavily to defend the seat at a time when it already faces daunting odds of retaining a razor-thin majority.“I understand personal loyalty, and I understand the depths of friendships, but somebody needs to take a stand here,” said Robert Torricelli, the former Democratic senator from New Jersey. “This is not about him — it’s about holding the majority.”Mr. Torricelli speaks from experience. He retired rather than seek re-election in 2002 after his own ethics scandal ended without charges. He was also widely believed to be a target of Mr. Menendez’s ire after the former senator put his hand up to succeed Mr. Menendez had he been convicted in 2017.“In the history of the United States Congress, it is doubtful there has ever been a corruption allegation of this depth and seriousness,” Mr. Torricelli added. “The degree of the evidence. The gold bars and the hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash. It’s incomprehensible.”The details laid out in the 39-page indictment were nothing short of tawdry. Prosecutors said that Mr. Menendez had used his position to provide sensitive government information to Egypt, browbeat the Department of Agriculture and tamper with a criminal investigation. In exchange, associates rewarded him with the gold bullion, car and cash, along with home mortgage payments and other benefits, they said.Prosecutors referred to a text between an Egyptian general and an Egyptian American businessman in which Mr. Menendez was referred to as “our man.” At one point, prosecutors said, the senator searched in a web browser “how much is one kilo of gold worth.”Damien Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, laid out details of a 39-page indictment against Mr. Menendez.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesMr. Menendez is far from the first elected official in New Jersey to face serious criminal allegations. With a long tradition of one-party rule, a bare-knuckle political culture and an unusual patchwork of governmental fiefs, the state has been a hotbed for corruption that has felled city councilors, mayors, state legislators and members of Congress.The Washington Post tried to quantify the criminality in 2015 and found that New Jersey’s rate of crime per politician easily led any other state. Mr. Menendez already has a Democratic primary opponent, Kyle Jasey, a real estate lender and first-time candidate who called the indictment an “embarrassment for our state.” But political strategists and elected Democrats said Mr. Jasey may not have the lane to himself for long.New Jersey has a glut of ambitious Democratic members of Congress with outsize national profiles; it took barely minutes on Friday for the state’s political class to begin speculating about who might step forward.Among the most prominent were Ms. Sherrill, 51, and Josh Gottheimer, 48, moderates known for their fund-raising prowess who have proven they can win difficult suburban districts and were already said to be looking at statewide campaigns for governor in 2025, when Mr. Murphy cannot run because of term limits. Other names included Mr. Kim and Tom Malinowski, a two-term congressman who lost his seat last year.National Republicans cast their focus on Christine Serrano Glassner, the two-term mayor of a small community roughly 25 miles west of Newark, N.J., who announced this week she would run.Mr. Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, was elected to his first local office at age 20. At 28, he donned a bulletproof vest as he testified in a corruption trial against his former mentor. He won the mayoralty of Union City, before moving onto the State Assembly, the Senate, the House of Representatives and, in 2006, an appointment to the Senate.It was only a matter of months before he was in the sights of the U.S. attorney’s office of New Jersey. The senator was never charged, but the investigation became campaign fodder after the U.S. attorney, then Chris Christie, issued a subpoena to a community agency that paid rent to Mr. Menendez while getting lucrative federal grants.Almost a decade later, federal prosecutors went further, making Mr. Menendez the first sitting senator in a generation to face federal bribery charges in 2015. They accused him of exchanging political favors with a wealthy Florida eye surgeon for luxury vacations, expensive flights and campaign donations.A jury heard the case two years later and could not reach a verdict; the Justice Department later dropped the prosecution, but the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee “severely admonished” him for accepting gifts while promoting the surgeon’s interests.Even so, Mr. Menendez handily won his party’s nomination and re-election in 2018.To longtime analysts of the state politics, though, Friday’s case crossed a new threshold.“Even by New Jersey standards, this one stands out — how graphic it is, how raw it is,” said Micah Rasmussen, a seasoned Democratic political hand who now leads Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.“There is a world of difference between not reporting a plane ride and having half a million in hundreds stashed around your house,” Mr. Rasmussen added. “By all rights, this should be the end of the line.”Tracey Tully More