Controversies of Rudy Giuliani: Difference between revisions

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

Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani has been the subject of various controversies.

Annulment of first marriage

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

Promotion or figures

Bernard Kerik

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

Russell Harding

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

Alleged free speech abridgments

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

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

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

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

Criticism surrounding the 9/11 attacks

2001 Mayoral election controversy

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

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

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

Lack of preparedness before the 9/11 attacks

Giuliani has been criticized for ignoring the ongoing threat to New York City from Islamist terrorists in the years between the first and second attacks on the World Trade Center. Prior to 9/11, Giuliani reportedly never referred to the 1993 WTC bombing publically except for a single metaphorical reference in his inaugural address not referring to terrorism. Giuliani also reportedly never discussed the threat of terrorism with the U.S. Attorney in his district, and had to ask Henry Kissinger for background information on Osama Bin Laden after the September 11th attacks despite the fact that the Bin Laden had previously declared a Fatwa against the United States, the Clinton administration had established a section of the CIA devoted exclusively to hunting Bin Laden and despite Clinton's military attacks on Al Qaeda.

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

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

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

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

The 9/11 Commission noted in its report that lack of preparedness could have led to the deaths of first responders at the scene of the attacks. The Commission noted that the radios in use by the fire department were the same radios which had been criticized for their ineffectiveness following the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Giuliani testified to the Commission, where some family members of responders who had died in the attacks appeared to protest his statements. A 1994 mayoral office study of the radios indicated that they were faulty. Replacement radios were purchased in a no-bid contract. They were implemented in early 2001. However, in March 2001 the replacement radios were found to be faulty also. A book later published by Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, revealed that the Commission had not pursued a tough enough line of questioning with Giuliani when he appeared before the Commission, because its members were afraid of public outcry. Family members had interrupted the proceedings, demanding an explanation from Giuliani for the lack of working radios. Some were removed from the hearing. The Commission had experienced criticism the morning of Giuliani's testimony for allegedly implying that police and firefighters had not done their jobs properly with their hard questions directed to some of Giuliani's staff the previous day. Commission member John Lehman had said that New York City's disaster planning was "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city." The morning of Giuliani's testimony, the New York Post ran a picture of a New York firefighter with the headline "Insult" in response to Lehman's statement.

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

Main article: September 11, 2001 radio communications

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

Handling of Ground Zero air quality issue

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

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

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

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

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

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

In June of 2007, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and director of the Environmental Protection Agency Christie Whitman reportedly stated that the EPA had pushed for workers at the WTC site to wear respirators but that she had been blocked by Giuliani. She stated that she believed that the subsequent lung disease and deaths suffered by WTC responders were a result of these actions. Former deputy mayor Joe Lhota, now with the Giuliani campaign, replied, "All workers at Ground Zero were instructed repeatedly to wear their respirators." A safety professional who worked at Ground Zero added, "I was absolutely aghast at the refusal of the workers at ground zero to wear the personal protective equipment. All of my efforts to convince these guys to wear the masks was for naught."

Aftermath of Ground Zero recovery effort

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

Giuliani Partners business deals

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

Lobbying efforts

On behalf of Venezuelan oil company Citgo

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

On behalf of the makers of Oxycontin

Bracewell & Giuliani represented Purdue Pharma, the makers of Oxycontin, during a lawsuit alleging that the pharmaceutical company misled the public about Oxycontin's addictive properties. Purdue Pharma, its president, top lawyer, and former chief medical officer agreed to pay $634.5 million in fines for claiming the drug was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other pain medications. It was later revealed that Giuliani acted as the "lead counsel and lead spokesmen" for the pharmaceutical company.

New York Yankees gifts

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

Fox News conflict of interest

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

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

Radio Comments to Parkinson's disease patient

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

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

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

Support for waterboarding

Giuliani has supported "waterboarding" in interrogation. He explained his support for waterboarding by posing a hypothetical situation, by suspecting that "we know that there's going to be another attack and these people (terrorists) know about it."Giuliani said that, in interrogating a terrorist in such a scenario, he "would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. It shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of."

However, former Vietnam POW and torture victim Sen. John McCain has said he believes waterboarding is a type of psychological torture that can damage the subject's psyche "in ways that may never heal" McCain, however, agreed with Giuliani to some extent that there are certain situations, such as the "ticking time bomb scenario" that a captured enemy combatant knows about. McCain stated, however, that "in such an urgent and rare instance, an interrogator might well try extreme measures to extract information that could save lives," but that this possible scenario does not warrant legalizing waterboarding. McCain goes on to state that in such scenarios he believes it would be better to break the law in the case of a ticking time bomb than to "lower our standards to accommodate a remote contingency."

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

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

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

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

Membership in the Iraq Study Group

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

Relationship with alleged pedophile priest

In June of 2007 organizations advocating for the rights of children sexually molested by priests urged Giuliani to fire long time friend Msgr. Alan Placa, a former priest employed by Giuliani Partners despite having been suspended by the Catholic church after a grand jury accused him both of sexually molesting numerous children and of covering up molestation by other priests. David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests stated there existed "ample evidence showing that Placa consistently protected predators, shrewdly deceived victims, and covered up horrific clergy sex crimes." Individuals have also come forward to testify both to the grand jury and to the media that they were molested by Placa. Placa reportedly has admitted to being the person identified in the grand jury report as "Priest F" - a man who the grand jury described as "cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office. Always, his actions were hidden by a poster, newspaper or a book. ... Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/22/placa/index1.html</ref> Despite the formal report, the 2003 grand jury did not file an indictment due to the statute of limitations on sexual abuse having expired. Giuliani has reportedly said he has no plans to fire the former priest.

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

Speaking fees

He has drawn scrutiny for his speaking fees, which are $100,000 per appearance, not including expenses. He netted $11 million in 2006, in book income and in speaking fees, usually on the September 11 theme. [12]