Decoding | The Rudy Giuliani episode

(New York) In 1989, famous founder of Velvet Underground, Lou Reed made a strong comeback with a new solo album, New YorkThe state of his city art. Among his targets: Donald Trump and Rudolf Giuliani.

Richard Hitto
Special cooperation

In a verse from the song Tired of youTrump died of mumps at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Giuliani went under the wheels of a car driven by an insider on Wall Street. The listener has no doubts what the rocker thinks about the real estate developer and federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York (SDNY).

Thirty-two years later, we can imagine the fun the late Lou Reed could have enjoyed last week watching the news on TV, as he did at the beginning of Tired of you. Pleasantly, some former New York federal prosecutors may have tried it in their hearts as well because Rudolph Giuliani, says Rudy, has somehow completed.

But before we go any further, a reminder: At around 6 a.m. last Wednesday, FBI agents carried out a search warrant in Rudolph Giuliani’s home and office, and seized several electronic devices. They were acting as part of an investigation opened in 2020 by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of SDNY, the same investigation that Rudi led from 1983 to 1989.

The investigation is seeking to determine whether Donald Trump’s personal attorney was also working on behalf of Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs when he maneuvered to secure the removal of US Ambassador to Ukraine Maria Yovanovich. This was leading a battle against corruption that alienated many influential Ukrainians. In particular, she refused to grant an entry visa to the former Ukrainian Prosecutor Viktor Schukin, who promised Rudolf Giuliani information that could harm Joe Biden.

Rudolf Giuliani swears that all of his dealings in Ukraine had only one goal: to serve the interests of his client, Donald Trump. It remains to be seen whether he will remain loyal to him.

Abuse of power

Meanwhile, this case brings back to the table the eternal question: How did the man who embodied public order at the helm of New York, who was the “mayor of America” ​​after the attacks of September 11, 2001, have it fallen so far?

The point is, Rudolph Giuliani’s reputation for incorruptibility never lasted. And Lou Reed was not the only one who had a low opinion of Ruddy during his tenure as head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for SDNY, one of the most prestigious positions in the US Department of Justice.

In 1986, conservative columnist In The New York Times William Savire was already accusing him of abusing his power by organizing media leaks to compel witnesses to collaborate. He rebuked his superiors for not “controlling” this man who was willing to “do anything for propaganda.”

In 2008, as many as 25 former federal prosecutors in the New York area, many of whom worked in the Federal Attorney General’s office for SDNY, went even further in an open letter. They bluntly accused Ruddy of an illegal practice, which was media leakage of information obtained in front of a grand jury. They also criticized the then presidential candidate for “providing an exaggerated and sometimes inaccurate picture of his accomplishments as a federal prosecutor.”

“The major prosecutions against the organized crime he claims to be behind were already developed by the FBI, mostly during his predecessor’s tenure. The largest cases of public corruption during his tenure resulted from an investigation conducted by the United States Attorney General in Chicago, Illinois. The Wall Street business was developed. By the Securities and Exchange Commission [Securities and Exchange Commission]Based on information provided by a brokerage firm. Under Giuliani, an extraordinary number of high-profile cases began with an uproar that was skillfully manipulated, but ended with dismissal, acquittal, or resignation. ”

“Ruddy is a fool”

After the 2019 Ukraine case and the 2020 election TV series, most Americans now share the opinion of Lou Reed and several former federal prosecutors about Rudolph Giuliani, Donald Trump’s second personal attorney who has been the subject of a search warrant.

The first, Michael Cohen, is now serving a sentence of three and a half years under house arrest. According to him, the investigation that Ruddy is subject to may go beyond the Ukrainian case. “We have no idea the size of this investigation […] Because Ruddy is a fool. That’s the problem, he told CNN. Rudi drinks a lot, Ruddy is behaving so erratic that no one knows what is on his phones or what is on his computers. ”

Michael Cohen’s reliability is not guaranteed. But the facts do not seem to contradict his opinion of Rudolf Giuliani’s judgment.

The investigation of Rudolf Giuliani stems from his relationship with two businessmen from the former Soviet Union, Lev Parnas and Igor Froman, who helped him in his efforts to secure the dismissal of Ambassador Jovanovich.

Rudy admitted to receiving $ 500,000 from a company that Parnas, a naturalized Ukrainian-American citizen, had its CEO which was called … Fraud Guarantee. Parnas and Furman were indicted in New York in October 2019 for concealing the foreign source of campaign donations, including $ 325,000 to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

In his 1986 essay on Rudolph Giuliani, William Sapphire wrote that “Corruption in New York is not so much of men who have painted their feet that it is of overly ambitious men.” Lou Reed couldn’t say or sing better.