S.C. Republican Questions Giuliani Speaking Fee (received $100,000 from tsunami victims benefit)

ABC News ^ | 31 March 2005 | Marc Ambinder

[Spiff]

S.C. Republican Questions Giuliani Speaking Fee

Questions Arise Concerning Speaking Fees Giuliani Received for Tsunami Relief Fund-Raiser

By MARC AMBINDER

March 31, 2005 — South Carolina Republican state Rep. Tracy Edge was outraged when he read in a New York newspaper Wednesday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had taken $80,000 from the South Carolina Hospital Association after hosting an Asian tsunami benefit on its behalf for the Red Cross.

Giuliani said today that he donated $20,000 to the charity, but the New York Observer reported that the association, through sponsors, paid the Republican celebrity tens of thousands of dollars more. He commands as much as $100,000 per speech.

Because Giuliani accepted the honorarium and since the hospital association declined to say how much it raised for the Red Cross, Edge worries that the money raised for tsunami relief efforts went right back to paying Giuliani — or that the Red Cross could have gotten $80,000 more.

"It's not right that he would ask for money to appear at an event designed to benefit the victims," he told ABC News.

Edge, a Republican, chairs a state legislative committee overseeing hospital budgets. He faxed Giuliani's office a letter Wednesday asking that all the money be returned to the association immediately.

'Shocked and Disappointed'

"I was shocked and disappointed to learn that Mayor Giuliani charged our state hospital association $100,000 to speak at an event to benefit tsunami victims. What makes this most offensive is the fact that the occasion was widely publicized as a charitable event. Nowhere was it disclosed that Mayor Giuliani was being paid for his appearance," he wrote to the mayor's office.

Giuliani today said he planned to call the hospital association to see whether it wants the money back.

"If they feel more should be donated, I would be more than happy to do it," he said at a news conference announcing his new partnership with a Texas-based law firm, now known as Bracewell & Giuliani.

"And if they think all of it should be … it's a conversation I will have with the hospital association. I'd like to see what they feel is the right thing to do because they know the economics of their event."

The hospital association, which lobbies the state legislature and accepts contributions from public and private sources, maintains that Giuliani's $100,000 fee was covered by contributions from private, outside sponsors.

[Spiff]

A recent CNN video about this can be found HERE.

A copy of Giuliani's standard speaking contract can be found HERE.

[Spiff]

PING

[alice_in_bubbaland]

I see that you have been working overtime today posting Anti-Rudy articles.

[steveo]

Giuliani... Did he really murder Anna Nicole's son?

[dmw]

The article the Spiff posted is from ABC, hardly anti-Rudy. The way I look at it, it's just the facts ma'am.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

Give him time he'll find the article. :)

[JCEccles]

You ought to read the contract. It's a real work of art.

.

[Spiff]

I see that you have been working overtime today posting Anti-Rudy articles.

Seeing that you've been here since 1999, I thought that you would have figured out already what we do here. You see, on Free Republic we beat up on liberals and we support conservatives. Since Rudy Giuliani is a stinking liberal who agrees with the Clintons most of the time (see my tagline) he deserves every punch thrown at him by the conservatives here. If I'm digging up information that damages a liberal like Giuliani, I'm keeping entirely in the spirit of what we've done here since this forum was founded. Maybe that R after Giuliani's name confused you.

[Reagan Man]

More exposure of Rudy. Good stuff.

Rudy gets 100K per speech. He's not worth it.

What could he possibly say that conservatives would want to hear. He hasn't been in elected office for five years. He's been making lots of cold cash, but whats he been contributing to the political battle? Nothing. Conservative FReepers have been more engaged in the politcal battles then Rudy has.

[Spiff]

You ought to read the contract. It's a real work of art.

What a diva.

I like his control over what press can cover any event and how it can be covered (only industry press, etc), what kind of flash photography can be used so that he comes out pretty in all of the photographs, 5 hotel rooms, etc. I wonder how well FReepers would be able to FReep (as we traditionally do to liberals) an event like that. He'd probably have us way down the street, away from the venue. I remember the Clintons and Gores doing that kind of thing.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

I've been reading his posts all day long. They sir, are anti Rudy. Those here who subscribe to the "GOP purist" attitude are going to have to look each other in the eye when Hillary is elected in 08 and blame themselves. I guess some haven't learned a darn thing since November.

[Spiff]

Those here who subscribe to the "GOP purist" attitude are going to have to look each other in the eye when Hillary is elected in 08 and blame themselves. I guess some haven't learned a darn thing since November.

Those who continue to push liberal RINO candidates in front of those who absolutely won't vote for them will have to look each other in the eye when someone else is elected in 08 and blame themselves. I guess some haven't learned a damned thing since November.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

Give it a rest dude. I see what YOU are doing.

[Spiff]

Giuliani... Did he really murder Anna Nicole's son?

Digging. Nope, haven't found that.

Yet.

[alice_in_bubbaland]

Be careful what you wish for...you might get nothing.

[Miss Marple]

It doesn't matter how much we object to trashing people in our own party. The people who post this stuff are either blind to the danger of doing this or democrats in disguise.

I am not committed to any candidate yet, but the anti_Rudy people are irritating me so much I may support him just to aggravate them.

[JCEccles]

Why should Rudy be above criticism?

[mylife]

Purist? Rudy nary resembles a republican.

[Spiff]

It doesn't matter how much we object to trashing people in our own party. The people who post this stuff are either blind to the danger of doing this or democrats in disguise.

Is Jim Robinson blind or a democrat in disguise?

To accept Rudolf Giuliani as the leader of the Republican party, among many other socialist mores we've fought against for so many years, we are told that we must accept abortion into our hearts. It is an accepted practice in modern America and only a minority of Americans say otherwise. Why resist?

Well, I'm sorry. I do not accept abortion into my heart. And I doubt the majority of Americans will either.

The mass murder of helpless innocent babies in the womb is evil. Period. Poking sharp instruments into the skulls of partially born babies and sucking their brains out is grotesque barbarism so horrific to be beyond the ability of most people to fully comprehend. It's unthinkable evil.

Knowing that the Democrat Party lovingly embraces this evil as part of their platform literally makes me sick to my stomach. Every time I see the face of Hillary, Kennedy, Schumer, Reid, et al, I see the face of pure evil. It's as if I'm looking into the face of Nazism

Rudolf Giuliani does not deliver us from this evil, he delivers us to it.

If the Republican party embraces this evil culture of death platform as the Democrat party does, then I will have to agree... it's time to move on.

The party of Reagan will be dead. The party of Lincoln will be dead. The party of Jeffersonian life and liberty will be dead. The only party defending human life and liberty in America will be dead.

The Republican party becomes the Democrat party and the Democrat party becomes the communist party, the right to life and liberty in America be damned.

Time and evil marches on.

Please pray for America.

140 posted on 02/11/2007 4:43:04 PM PST by Jim Robinson ("Electable" gave us Gerald Ford and Bob Dole. Voting for the right-wing kook gave us Reagan. ~ A.C.)

[mylife]

Oh Comon! Do you want to trot his skeletons out now, or during an election?