Rudy Giuliani

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Giuliani names Trump election deniers as witnesses in legal ethics case

      by

      Giuliani names Trump election deniers as witnesses in legal ethics caseDoug Mastriano, Jenna Ellis and Peter Navarro among those named in case related to attempt to overturn Pennsylvania result Facing a Washington DC legal ethics prosecution over his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has turned to a cast of characters from that failed effort.Giuliani review: Andrew Kirtzman’s definitive life of Trump’s last lackeyRead moreA witness list filed by lawyers for Giuliani on Friday included Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania; the former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis; and Christina Bobb, an attorney currently caught up in Trump’s fight with the US Department of Justice over the retention of classified records.Also among those named were the former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi; Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser charged with contempt of Congress in the January 6 investigation; former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski; and Bernard Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who Trump pardoned of felonies that sent him to jail.Phil Waldron, a former army colonel turned Texas bar owner who pushed baseless electoral fraud claims, was also on the witness list.Giuliani is accused of mounting a frivolous election challenge in Pennsylvania – one of four states, with Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, on which the attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory focused and which Trump this week named in an intemperate response to a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.The DC office of disciplinary counsel intends to call Giuliani as a witness. The former mayor appears on his own list too.Giuliani has said he had a “good faith basis” for contesting mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.But his work as Trump’s personal attorney – for which he has famously struggled to secure payment – landed him in legal jeopardy on a number of fronts.Giuliani’s role in approaches to Ukraine for political dirt on Trump opponents including Biden landed him in the middle of Trump’s first impeachment.Trump’s second impeachment, for inciting the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, was the result of the failure of legal attempts to overturn the 2020 election.In Georgia, Giuliani has been named as the target of a criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the election result there.In New York, he has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election machinery.Giuliani is also suspended from practicing law in New York state.Writing for Slate, the Harvard law professor Laurence H Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, said Giuliani and the law professor John Eastman were “the two chief ‘generals’ [who] orchestrat[ed] Trump’s abuse of the law to overturn the election”.The authors added: “In joining the bar, lawyers take an oath to support the US constitution much like the one that Article VI of the constitution requires of all public officials. Lawyers who betrayed that oath in ways that led to the deadly insurrection of January 6 are no better than a physician who violates the Hippocratic Oath to ‘do no harm’.”The complaint in the DC case says Giuliani violated two Pennsylvania rules that bar attorneys from bringing frivolous proceedings without a basis in law or fact and prohibit conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The charges can lead to the suspension of a license to practice or disbarment.The hearing is set for December.TopicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsRepublicansLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Giuliani review: Andrew Kirtzman’s authoritative life of Trump’s last lackey

      by

      Giuliani review: Andrew Kirtzman’s definitive life of Trump’s last lackey A new account of the rise and fall of the man who was ‘America’s mayor’ after 9/11 is both masterful and engrossingRudy Giuliani went from hero to zero. As mayor, he guided New York City and the nation through the trauma of 9/11. Twenty years later, Sacha Baron Cohen captured him with his hands down his pants and cameras rolled as dye ran down his sweaty face. America laughed.‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreBefore he was mayor, Giuliani was US attorney for the southern district of New York and US associate attorney general under Ronald Reagan. He frog-marched wayward bankers across trading floors, to the delight of all except Wall Street and civil libertarians.As mayor, Giuliani ruled the city as only a former prosecutor could. He demanded loyalty and brooked no dissent.Andrew Kirtzman’s first biography was called Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City. In his second, the author describes an “authoritarian” mayor. According to her sister, the mayor’s mother, Helen Giuliani, “liked” Mussolini. Her husband, Harold, was a stick-up man and leg-breaker for the mob and did prison time at Sing Sing. Under Giuliani, New Yorkers felt safer than they would under Bill de Blasio or, now, Eric Adams. But Giuliani broadcast disdain for the city’s minorities and lacked the temperament, capacity for consensus and deep pockets of Michael Bloomberg, his billionaire successor. All too often, Giuliani simply acted like a thug.After 9/11, he ran for president, made money as a lawyer then became a Trump flunky. Now, thanks to his work to advance the former president’s big lie about election fraud, he is being targeted by prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia and his law license is suspended. Think of a malevolent Inspector Clouseau.Apparently, Giuliani is conscious of his decline. On the other hand, he has said: “I don’t care about my legacy. I’ll be dead.” That quote leads Kirtzman’s introduction.As a reporter on NY1, Time Warner’s 24-hour local cable news channel, Kirtzman covered Giuliani from the campaign trail to city hall. On 11 September 2001, he was there with the mayor in lower Manhattan. He witnessed Giuliani’s strides, his missteps and his spectacular collapse. Kirtzman’s new subtitle, The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, says it all.The book is masterful and engrossing. It is girded by more than 40 pages of endnotes. The author and David Holley, his researcher, have performed yeoman work. They capture what made the man tick and what led to his fall from grace. Kirtzman’s critique is leavened with bittersweet impressions and references to Giuliani’s accomplishments.On election night 2020 and after, the former mayor helped Trump resist the will of the people. The social fabric was theirs to torch and shred. Giuliani’s self-righteousness complimented Trump’s refusal to acknowledge defeat. The soon-to-be ex-president offered Giuliani another opportunity to seize center stage. If Trump wouldn’t name him secretary of state, he could at least cosplay as a presidential lawyer.Kirtzman’s book ranks with other essential biographies such as Rudy! by the late and great investigative reporter Wayne Barrett and the more favorable The Prince of the City by Fred Siegel, an urban historian and Giuliani adviser.Kirtzman gets Judith Nathan, Giuliani’s third ex-wife, to truly dish the dirt. She says Giuliani’s crushing failure in the 2008 presidential primary left him broken and clutching the bottle. She credits Trump for providing shelter.“We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,” she says.As Kirtzman puts it, Giuliani “dreamed of becoming president from a young age, [but] blew his big moment when it arrived”. In the torrid aftermath, he spoke to therapists but, to quote Nathan, was “always falling shitfaced somewhere”.The couple are divorced but their antipathy continues to smolder. Characteristically, Giuliani has offered a different explanation for his stumbles and falls. He played baseball as a youngster and developed “catcher’s knee”. Does anyone really believe Giuliani was ever a budding Yogi Berra?Anthony Carbonetti, Giuliani’s chief of staff at city hall, is also a family friend. He also talked to Kirtzman, targeting Nathan while delivering a backhanded defense of his former boss. He told Nathan to “stay the fuck” out of Giuliani’s life. To Kirtzman, he opines: “If you spent an extensive amount of time with that woman, you’d drink a lot.”Carbonetti became a conduit between Trump and Giuliani … and, with other members of Giuliani’s retinue, a lobbyist for Qatar.As Kirtzman makes clear, Giuliani was never short on zeal. For Trump, he sought to become the second Roy Cohn, Trump’s all-time favorite lawyer. From seeking dirt in Ukraine to falsely blaming Dominion Voting Systems for Trump’s loss, Giuliani did it all. His capacity for self-abasement was bottomless.‘Unhinged’ Rudy Giuliani drank and ranted about Islam, new book claimsRead moreIn the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, Maria Ryan, a Giuliani associate, sought a pardon and the presidential medal of freedom. She also attempted to get him paid. She failed. Giuliani forgot that even as Cohn lay in hospital, dying of Aids, Trump cast him aside.“I can’t believe he’s doing this to me,” Cohn said. “Donald pisses ice water.”Giuliani has testified before a Fulton county grand jury and the House January 6 committee. He is a defendant in defamation suits brought by Dominion and Smartmatic, another election machines company. In Trumpworld, Maga means Make America Great Again. It might also mean “Making attorneys get attorneys”.Kirtzman’s biography sums things up. Despite it all, two years after the 2020 election he refused to concede, Trump remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.“Giuliani, on the other hand, [is] finished in every conceivable way.”
      Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor is published in the US by Simon & Schuster
      TopicsBooksRudy GiulianiRepublicansDonald TrumpNew YorkUS politicsPolitics booksreviewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Holding the Line review: Geoffrey Berman blasts Barr and dumps Trump

      by

      Holding the Line review: Geoffrey Berman blasts Barr and dumps Trump The fired New York prosecutor has produced a classic of a modern literary genre: Trump alumni revenge pornFive months before the 2020 election, Bill Barr fired Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York.‘You have to run’: Romney urged Biden to take down Trump, book saysRead moreTrying to justify the decision, Barr twisted himself into a pretzel. Donald Trump had not nominated Berman. Jeff Sessions, Barr’s predecessor as attorney general, named him to the post on an interim basis and a panel of federal judges kept him on. Barr’s authority to rid himself of this troublesome prosecutor was at best disputable.Revenge is best served cold. Two years and three months later, Berman is back with a memoir, Holding the Line. In the annals of Trump alumni revenge porn, it is an instant classic. It is smart and crisp. It is full of bile and easy to read.Barr wrote his own book. He has toured the TV studios, seeking rehabilitation. Over 350 pages, Berman immolates all that.He also tells the public what Trump and his own transition team knew from the outset: Rudy Giuliani was “unhinged”, and friends with the bottle. The chaos of Giuliani’s work as Trump’s attorney, through impeachment and insurrection, cannot have been a surprise. It may be surprising, though, that he was once in contention to be secretary of state.Berman also pulverizes Trump’s contention that Merrick Garland’s justice department is hyper-politicized. Berman shows that under Trump, Main Justice was a haven for lackeys all too willing to do the big guy’s bidding. He accuses Trump of weaponizing the justice department, pushing it to prosecute his critics and enemies while sparing his friends.After New York prosecutors brought charges against Michael Cohen, Trump’s one-time fixer, and Chris Collins, a New York congressman, the powers-that-be purportedly advised Berman: “It’s time for you guys to even things out.”Practically, that meant launching an investigation at Trump’s behest into John Kerry, for allegedly violating the Logan Act in talks with Iranian officials after retiring as secretary of state.Briefly, the Logan Act, from 1798, bars non-government officials from negotiating with foreign powers. In the case of Greg Craig, Barack Obama’s White House counsel, it meant charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. After Berman unsuccessfully argued that Craig should not have been prosecuted, Craig was acquitted by a federal jury. Kerry was never indicted.Berman is a Republican. He volunteered on Trump’s 2016 campaign and was once a law partner of Giuliani. He is also a former editor of the Stanford Law Review, happy to punch up. As with most Trump memoirs, Holding the Line is full of score-settling. Berman calls Barr a liar, a bully and a thug.Writing about his dismissal, Berman says: “I would describe Barr’s posture that morning as thuggish. He wanted to bludgeon me into submission.”“If you do not resign from your position, you will be fired,” Barr purportedly warned. “That will not be good for your resume and future job prospects.”Think of Berman as the honey badger – if the honey badger headed up a white-collar practice at a Wall Street law firm. He doesn’t give a fig. He holds the receipts. William Barr defends FBI and justice department over Mar-a-Lago searchRead more“Several hours after Barr and I met,” he writes, “on a Friday night, [Barr] issued a press release saying that I was stepping down. That was a lie.”“A lie told by the nation’s top law enforcement officer.”Barr’s stints in government are emblematic of the descent of the Republican party in the last 30 years. Barr was George HW Bush’s attorney general. Next time round he was simply Trump’s guy at Main Justice.Barr coddled Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. He marched to St John’s church with the president and misled the public about the use of teargas to disperse protesters. More than once, his relationship with the truth drew the ire of the federal bench. His last-moment departure from the Trump administration bore all the marks of the arsonist who flees when the flames grow uncomfortably close.As for Giuliani, Berman portrays him as a boozy and incoherent Islamophobe. In the spring of 2016, Berman organised a “cross-selling dinner” to introduce Giuliani and other lawyers to clients “at a large financial institution”. Things headed south. Giuliani “continued to drink”. The dinner morphed into “an utter and complete train wreck”.At one point, Berman writes, Giuliani turned to a man “wearing a yarmulke [who] had ordered a kosher meal”. Under the impression the man was a Muslim, Giuliani said: “I’m sorry to have tell you this, but the founder of your religion is a murderer.”“It was unbelievable,” Berman gasps. “Rudy was unhinged. A pall fell over the room.”Two years later, the law firm, Greenberg Traurig, shoved Giuliani out the door. He had opined that hush-money payments made via a lawyer were perfectly normal, even when not authorised by the client. In the case in question, Michael Cohen acted as a conduit between Stormy Daniels, an adult film star, and Trump.Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a horse, new book saysRead more“That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do, out of his law firm funds,” Giuliani told Fox News. “Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of this with my clients.”Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges – and became a target of Trump’s animus and Barr’s vengeance.‘Unhinged’ Rudy Giuliani drank and ranted about Islam, new book claimsRead moreThese days, Giuliani is in the cross-hairs of prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia, over Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in the state. Trump’s own legal exposure appears to grow almost hourly. Barr surmises that an indictment may be imminent.From the looks of things, Geoffrey Berman is having the last laugh.
      Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department is published in the US by Penguin Press
      TopicsBooksTrump administrationDonald TrumpWilliam BarrRudy GiulianiUS politicsRepublicansreviewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Unhinged’ Rudy Giuliani drank and ranted about Islam, new book claims

      by

      ‘Unhinged’ Rudy Giuliani drank and ranted about Islam, new book claimsEx-mayor derailed ‘train wreck’ dinner with clients and colleagues, then was later considered for secretary of state At a law firm dinner in New York in May 2016, an “unhinged” Rudy Giuliani, then Donald Trump’s suggested pick to head a commission on “radical Islamic terrorism”, behaved in a drunken and Islamophobic manner, horrifying clients and attorneys alike.Trump attorney general Barr a liar, bully and thug, says fired US attorney in bookRead moreAccording to a new book by Geoffrey Berman, a former US attorney for the southern district of New York (SDNY), at one point Giuliani turned to a Jewish man “wearing a yarmulke [who] had ordered a kosher meal” and, under the impression the man was a Muslim, said: “I’m sorry to have tell you this, but the founder of your religion is a murderer.”“It was unbelievable,” Berman writes. “Rudy was unhinged. A pall fell over the room.”Later that year, after Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the White House, Giuliani was seriously considered to be secretary of state – top diplomat for the US.He went on to closely advise Trump, as his personal attorney, during his chaotic presidency and its violent aftermath.Giuliani’s drinking has been both widely reported and discussed under oath, in testimony before the House January 6 committee regarding his behaviour during Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.It is also a feature of Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, a new biography by Andrew Kirtzman. Among other episodes, Kirtzman recounted a period of near-collapse, during which Giuliani stayed in seclusion at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort.Berman’s memoir, Holding the Line: Inside the Nation’s Preeminent US Attorney’s Office and its Battle with the Trump Justice Department, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Berman’s main subject is his long battle with William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, over what Berman says were attempts to use the Department of Justice for political ends. The contest between the two men culminated in a farcical attempt to fire Berman and, he writes, replace him with someone more politically pliable.Giuliani, also a former US attorney for the SDNY, was mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001, becoming known as “America’s Mayor” for his leadership during and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After a failed run for president in 2008 he was a close adviser to Trump when the billionaire launched his own campaign in 2015.In May 2016, Trump told Fox News he had proposed a ban on Muslims entering the US because “radical Islamic terrorism” was “a real problem”.He added: “In fact, I’m thinking about setting up a commission perhaps headed by Rudy Giuliani to take a very serious look at this problem.”Giuliani had just joined Berman’s law firm. Berman writes that he organised a “cross-selling dinner”, to introduce the former mayor and other new lawyers to clients “at a large financial institution”.Giuliani behaved well to start with, Berman says, but he “continued to drink” and “shifted the conversation to his work for Trump on immigration”. For Berman, the dinner became “an utter and complete train wreck”.Giuliani, Berman writes, shared a “wholly inaccurate, alt-right history of the creation and development of Islam, stating that it was an inherently violent religion from its origins to today”.To growing consternation among guests, Giuliani produced his phone and “showed the group drawings of violent acts purportedly committed by Muslims”.There followed the exchange with the man in the yarmulke, who “for some reason, Rudy thought … was Muslim”, even though as a two-term mayor of New York, in Berman’s words, Giuliani “was clearly acquainted with Jews”.After Giuliani’s diatribe, Berman “broke the silence with a stab at humour. ‘Well that’s seven years of client development down the drain,’ I announced.”‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysRead moreGiuliani “wasn’t slurring his words”, Berman writes, “… but his impulses had control of him”.Berman says the story of the client dinner “never made it into the press, but it did get around”. A few weeks later, at a reunion for “hundreds” of former SDNY prosecutors, Berman was told there was “not a single former [prosecutor] in this room who has not heard about the dinner”.Kirtzman reports that stories of Giuliani’s drinking ultimately contributed to Trump deciding not to make him secretary of state. The former mayor was also discussed as a possible attorney general.Such heights now seem far away. Giuliani’s work for Trump in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election has contributed to the suspension of his law licenses and placed him in legal jeopardy, the target of a criminal investigation in Georgia.TopicsBooksRudy GiulianiRepublicansPolitics booksUS politicsDonald TrumpIslamnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      House select panel asks Newt Gingrich to testify in effort to overturn election

      by

      House select panel asks Newt Gingrich to testify in effort to overturn electionThe former Republican House speaker is believed to have repeatedly contacted White House aides about fake electors The House January 6 select committee on Thursday asked former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich to testify about his repeated contacts with White House aides in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, even in the evening after the Capitol attack had taken place.The request to Gingrich was for voluntary cooperation – though the select committee showed it now appears to believe he was involved in a potential conspiracy planned ahead of time to lay the groundwork that would lead to reversing Trump’s defeat on January 6.Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election Read moreCongressman Bennie Thompson, the committee chair, said in a letter to Gingrich that investigators were interested in him counseling Trump aides to make TV ads about debunked election fraud conspiracies to pressure state legislators into decertifying Biden electors.The letter detailed that it had communications that showed he tried to liaise with former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone about the fake elector scheme, asking whether anyone was coordinating Trump slates to Congress so that he could be declared the winner.The select committee noted that Gingrich then furthered that effort as he emailed Meadows at 10.42pm on January 6 – hours after the Capitol attack had already largely concluded and Congress was preparing to confirm Biden’s win – asking whether there were “letters from state legislators about decertifying electors”.“Surprisingly, the attack on Congress and the activities prescribed by the Constitution did not even pause your relentless pursuit. On the evening of January 6, you continued to push efforts to overturn the election results,” the letter said.The select committee stopped short of issuing a subpoena to Gingrich, but also asked him to preserve his communications with Trump, the White House and the Trump legal team led by Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, as well as anyone else connected to January 6.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpRudy GiulianiUS Capitol attackNewt GingrichnewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book says

      by

      ‘Donald kept our secret’: Mar-a-Lago stay saved Giuliani from drink and depression, book saysFormer New York mayor’s ex-wife describes breakdown Trump helped hide, years before mutual White House drama Depressed and drinking to excess after the failure of his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Rudy Giuliani secretly recovered at the Florida home of a close friend and ally – Donald Trump.Trump stash retrieved from Mar-a-Lago runs to hundreds of classified filesRead more“We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,” Giuliani’s third wife, Judith Giuliani, says in a new book.Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, by Andrew Kirtzman, will be published in September. The Guardian obtained a copy.In 2018, Giuliani told the New York Times he “spent a month at Mar-a-Lago, relaxing” after the primary a decade before. He has not otherwise discussed the period.Giuliani initially polled well in 2008 but won just one delegate and dropped out after placing fourth in Florida.The former mayor, Kirtzman writes, had “dreamed of becoming president from a young age, [but] blew his big moment when it arrived”.Judith Giuliani tells Kirtzman her husband fell into “what, I knew as a nurse, was a clinical depression”.“She said he started to drink more heavily,” Kirtzman writes. “While Giuliani was always fond of drinking scotch with his cigars while holding court at the Grand Havana or Club Mac, his friends never considered him a problem drinker. Judith felt he was drinking to dull the pain.”Giuliani has repeatedly denied having a drinking problem. But reports of his drinking while fulfilling his late-career role as Trump’s personal attorney are legion, whether regarding his behavior around reporters or in his presence at the White House on election night in 2020, when he exhorted Trump to declare victory before all results were counted.In testimony to the House January 6 committee, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” that night.Kirtzman’s reporting of Giuliani’s little-known 2008 stay at Mar-a-Lago – a period when in Giuliani’s ex-wife’s words he was both speaking to therapists and “always falling shitfaced somewhere” – also prefigures Giuliani’s current role in American public life, as a chaotic, picaresque Trump booster seemingly impervious to personal or political embarrassment.Trump is a lifelong teetotaler but also a longtime Giuliani ally. In 2008, Kirtzman says, as Giuliani was struggling even to get out of bed, Trump came to his rescue.The former mayor and his wife, Kirtzman writes, moved into a bungalow across the street from Mar-a-Lago but connected by a tunnel underneath South Ocean Boulevard, one of many little known passages and rooms beneath the expansive resort. The secret route allowed the couple to come and go from Trump’s home without the media knowing.As Kirtzman’s book nears publication, underground rooms at Mar-a-Lago are in the news, after the FBI searched some for classified material taken from the White House at the end of Trump’s four years as president.Giuliani eventually emerged from seclusion to appear on Saturday Night Live. He made “self-deprecating jokes about the failure of his campaign”, Kirtzman writes, but “his makeup barely hid a large scar above his right eyebrow”. According to Judith Giuliani, the scar was the result of a fall when getting out of a car.Kirtzman writes that Giuliani’s third wife “was known to exaggerate, and the depth of his depression [during his secret spell at Mar-a-Lago] is something that only she and Giuliani knew for certain”. But the author also quotes friends, among them the 2013 Republican New York mayoral candidate Joe Lhota, as saying the Giulianis were out of touch at the time in question.Kirtzman recounts Giuliani’s career from his days as a hard-charging New York prosecutor to two terms as a controversial mayor, the 9/11 attacks and Giuliani’s widely praised leadership in the immediate aftermath.The author also covers Giuliani’s business deals after leaving office and his failed Senate run against Hillary Clinton in 2000.04:35In Giuliani’s meltdown after the primary in 2008, Kirtzman finds the seeds of a relationship which ultimately saw Giuliani contribute to Trump’s first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine for political dirt, and to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Those efforts resulted in Trump’s second impeachment, over the Capitol riot, and extensive professional and legal jeopardy for Giuliani.Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in GeorgiaRead moreAs reported by the New York Times, Kirtzman ultimately describes a Giuliani associate’s failed request that Trump pardon his ally in the aftermath of the Capitol attack – and give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom while he was at it.Giuliani and Trump had “a compelling kinship”, Kirtzman writes. “The former mayor and the famous developer were two New York colossuses, dinosaurs from another time and place.” Judith Giuliani tells Kirtzman Trump and his own third wife, Melania Trump, “kept a protective eye” on their friends.Judith, Kirtzman writes, “contends that, eight years before Washington began talking about Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump in the same breath, the future president took the failed candidate under his protective wing at a vulnerable moment.“What’s clear is the two men’s friendship survived when a hundred other Trump relationships died away like so many marriages of convenience. Giuliani would never turn his back on Trump, much to his detriment.”TopicsBooksRudy GiulianiUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansPolitics booksBiography booksnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in Georgia

      by

      Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in GeorgiaThe former New York mayor has been identified as a key figure in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani is a target of the criminal investigation in Georgia that has been examining efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state by the former president and his allies, a source briefed on the matter confirmed on Monday.Georgia grand jury subpoenas Trump lawyers over effort to overturn electionRead moreThe move to designate Giuliani, 78, as a target – as opposed to a subject – raises the legal stakes for the ex-New York mayor, identified as a key figure in the attempt to reverse the former president’s electoral defeat to Joe Biden in the state.The office of Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney prosecuting the case, told Giuliani he was a target of the criminal investigation into that attempt.Willis has already told about a dozen others they are targets, including two state senators and the head of the state Republican party.The disclosure, earlier reported by the New York Times, presents Giuliani with difficult choices, including whether to invoke his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination in a deposition or cooperate in the hope of earning leniency at sentencing.Giuliani is scheduled to testify before the special grand jury on Monday in Atlanta. The news of his target designation comes days after a Fulton county judge told prosecutors to indicate to Giuliani whether he was a target or a subject of the criminal investigation.The Fulton county judge said informing Giuliani about his status would give some clarity on “what impact that has on the extent of his time in front of the grand jury”, given he is scheduled to appear after having taken a long road trip from New York, where he lives.TopicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2020GeorgianewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Meet the key players who have defined the January 6 hearings

      by

      Meet the key players who have defined the January 6 hearingsAs the eighth public hearing begins, know the people who helped understand Trump’s efforts to overturn the election The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has introduced Americans to a cast of characters critical to understanding then president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn a free and fair democratic election. Arizona Republican censured by party over testimony on resisting TrumpRead moreThe committee interviewed hundreds of witnesses during its yearlong investigation into the 2021 insurrection and the events that led to it. Some appeared in person, others taped depositions that were played during the hearings. Some pled the fifth or refused to cooperate.Here are the major players who have defined the January 6 hearings.Bennie ThompsonMississippi Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson, 74, was chosen by House speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead the panel, the capstone of a career devoted to protecting voting rights. He grew up in the racially-segregated south, an experience he has cited as a reminder that antidemocratic forces are as old as the nation itself.With his solemn, reverent tone, the chairman has essentially acted as narrator of the story of a democracy in peril. Thompson will chair Thursday’s hearing remotely due to a Covid-19 diagnosis. Liz CheneyWyoming Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney has led the charge against erstwhile colleague Donald Trump, acting as the panel’s top prosecutor. Unsparring and matter-of-fact, the committee vice-chair has provided some of the hearing’s most shocking revelations, among them that Trump appeared to endorse his supporters’ chants to “hang Mike Pence” for the then vice-president’s refusal to try to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, and that the former president had sought to contact a committee witness.Cheney, the 55-year-old daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, is one of the few in her party willing to criticize the former president, though her dogged efforts to hold Trump accountable for the insurrection could cost her a seat in Congress as she faces a Trump-backed primary challenge. Cassidy HutchinsonA former aide to Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson provided the committee – and the country – with damning testimony.Hutchinson described a president spiraling out of control as he clung to power. She recalled Meadows, who refused to cooperate with the committee, warning that “things might get real bad” on 6 January.Hutchinson described violent outbursts by Trump and testified under oath that he knew some of his supporters were armed when he directed them to march to the Capitol.Hutchinson has been likened to John Dean, a key witness in the Watergate hearings. But her turn from junior White House staffer to star witness has drawn harsh scrutiny from those she once worked alongside, including Trump. She has stood by her testimony.Pat CipollonePat Cipollone, Trump’s second and final White House counsel recently appeared before the January 6 committee, after it subpoenaed him following Hutchinson’s testimony. Cipollone resisted Trump’s schemes to reverse the election and believed he should concede.Cipollone attended meetings at which Trump’s efforts to subvert the election were discussed, including a December 2020 confrontation just before Trump sent a tweet the committee described as a “call to arms” to extremist supporters. Cipollone said he asked informal advisors pushing wild claims of voter fraud: “where is the evidence?” They never provided it.Rudy Giuliani and Sidney PowellRudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Sidney Powell, a lawyer for Trump’s 2020 campaign, led the unsuccessful legal campaign to overturn the 2020 election based on spurious claims of voter fraud. Called “Team crazy” by White House officials, Giuliani, Powell and a group of others promoted outlandish conspiracy theories and tactics, including citing far-fetched plots involving hacked thermostats, a deceased former leader of Venezuela and a push to seize voting machines.As a result of their efforts to subvert the election, Giuliani had his law license in New York suspended and is ensnared in a Georgia investigation. Powell is facing disbarment in Texas. John EastmanJohn Eastman was a conservative law professor in California before he became a key figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Eastman devised a brazen plan that vice-president Mike Pence could unilaterally block or delay Congress’ certification of the electoral college results, which finalized Biden’s victory.In a legal memo, Eastman mapped out the actions Pence could take to thwart Congress from counting the electoral votes, an unprecedented deviation from the vice-president’s ceremonial role in the process. A June hearing revealed that Eastman warned Trump that the plan was illegal.A federal judge determined that he and Trump “more likely than not” attempted to illegally obstruct Congress.Jeff ClarkA former mid-level justice department official, Jeff Clark worked closely with Trump to undo the 2020 election. He proposed sending a letter to Georgia and other closely-contested states that falsely claimed the justice department had “identified significant concerns” with the results.In a June hearing, his superiors at the department testified that any assertion the department had substantiated claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election were brazenly false. Clark sought, ultimately unsuccessfully, to persuade Trump to install him as the acting attorney general. Last month, Clark said federal agents searched his home as part of the separate Department of Justice investigation into the 6 January 2021 attack and election subversion efforts.Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss and Ruby FreemanShaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, poll workers in Fulton county, Georgia, had their lives upended when Giuliani placed them at the center of an election-rigging conspiracy. Though the claims were baseless, the women’s testimony described in wrenching detail the very real consequences of Trump’s lie that he had won the 2020 election.Freeman, known as Lady Ruby, told the committee she had lost her sense of security. Her daughter, who testified publicly, said she received a torrent of racist and “hateful” messages on social media. Election-result deniers even showed up at her grandmother’s house claiming they could make a “citizen’s arrest” of the poll workers.Moss was awarded the John F Kennedy profile in courage award for her “hard and unseen work to run our democracy”.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpRudy GiulianifeaturesReuse this content More