Posted on 12/03/2004 10:10:24 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
He has a close friend at the White House and an international profile unlike any achieved by a former New York City mayor. Now, Rudolph W. Giuliani and his security consulting firm should soon have another advantage: a former business partner in charge of a sprawling government department that buys $7 billion a year in homeland security goods and services.
The move by Bernard B. Kerik from the Times Square offices of Giuliani Partners to Washington, where he has been nominated to become secretary of Homeland Security, will present both an opportunity and a challenge for the former mayor, other homeland security consultants say.
It will almost certainly draw more attention to Giuliani Partners, which over the last three years has made tens of millions of dollars helping corporations expand their homeland security sales, among other lucrative contracts.
"Any time you have the visibility like that, there is no doubt it can do anything but help," said James Lee Witt, a former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who now runs his own Washington-based homeland security consulting firm. "It puts the focus on the company you come from."
Mr. Giuliani, in a telephone interview on Friday, did not dispute the claim, although he said there is a downside as well. "Sure, it is good for the reputation of the company," Mr. Giuliani said. "But it is bad for the company in that Bernie is irreplaceable."
Both Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Kerik campaigned vigorously for President Bush's re-election this year. Mr. Giuliani declined to say whether he asked Mr. Bush to appoint Mr. Kerik, who served him as commissioner of the Police and Correction Departments.
For both the former mayor and Mr. Kerik, the move will require avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest, as they work in their separate but intimately interrelated worlds.
"Bernie and Rudy will have to go the extra mile to ensure that there are not only no conflicts, but not even the perception of impropriety in any contract they do," said Jerome M. Hauer, who served during Mr. Giuliani's first term as the emergency management director and then in the Bush administration. "But that is just Rudy's nature and Bernie's nature."
Michael D. Hess, senior managing director at Giuliani Partners, said the firm would change the name of Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C., the division of the partnership that Mr. Kerik has managed. Mr. Kerik will also sell his stake in the company, a spokeswoman said, though the company declined to say how much money he would make from the transaction.
"We would not want to insinuate in any way that there are lasting ties," Mr. Hess said. Mr. Hess said no one at Giuliani Partners will be lobbying Mr. Kerik, or anyone at the department. At the same time, he said, the company will continue to represent companies that sell homeland security products or services.
"Do we have to go away from it?" Mr. Hess asked. "No, but do we have to be careful and observant and forward-thinking about it, yes," Mr. Hess said.
Mr. Giuliani's homeland security-related clients have included Nextel, the cellular phone company that does 15 percent of its business with governments; Cognos Corporation and Strohl Systems, two software companies that sell homeland security products; and AON Corporation and CB Richard Ellis, which sell risk assessment and real estate advice to businesses that want help preparing for a possible terrorist attack.
Mr. Kerik, who declined a request for comment, was involved in these and other deals, like advising the utility Entergy Nuclear about how to plan for possible emergencies at its nuclear power plants, including one 35 miles north of Manhattan.
He made public appearances sponsored by some of the clients, like Nextel, in which he urged government officials to prepare for a possible terrorist attack with just the kind of equipment that Nextel sold.
"I don't necessarily talk about the products," Mr. Kerik said in an interview earlier this year. "I'm not like a big sales guy."
One prediction Mr. Kerik often made while speaking on behalf of Giuliani Partners he now may have to face in a much more personal way: that another terrorist attack in the United States is largely inevitable.
"I'm not here to scare anyone," Mr. Kerik told a disaster preparedness meeting in 2003, according to newspaper accounts. "But I can tell you this, Sept. 11 is not the last attack we will see in this country."
More recently, Giuliani Partners has branched out into worlds far beyond security. Earlier this week, the firm announced the creation of Giuliani Capital Advisors L.L.C., an investment banking firm. A plan announced last year to jointly invest $300 million with Bear Stearns Merchant Banking in companies that sold security and public safety products and services did not go very far, and soon may be abandoned, Mr. Hess said.
At the Homeland Security Department, Mr. Kerik will oversee an agency that in 2003 awarded 82,192 contracts, worth a total of $6.73 billion, including $408 million that were not based on competitive bidding. Some of the largest contractors include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Accenture and Unisys Corporation, none of which are clients of Giuliani Partners.
Larry Orluskie, a department spokesman, said all contracts would be awarded on merit.
"It is not based on who knows who, and it is not going to be," he said.
bttt
What’s he going to Washington for, sanctuary?
Can you spell corruption? How about war profiteering?
Kerik's questionable contracts probed
BY GRAHAM RAYMAN
NY Newsday, December 15, 2004
The controversy earlier this year over Bernard Kerik's purchase of high-tech security doors was not the only questionable procurement made on his watch, a retired correction official says.
The Police Department purchase of the four $50,000 doors from Queens-based Georal International in June 2001 during Kerik's tenure as commissioner led to an internal affairs investigation this year under current Commissioner Ray Kelly.
But retired Deputy Warden Terrence Skinner says there were several major purchases Kerik approved as correction commissioner that left him scratching his head.
The largest of the three involved the $4.8-million purchase of 11,008 stab-resistant vests in May 2000 from a company called Second Chance Body Armor Inc. The purchase was touted at the time by Kerik and then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in a City Hall news conference.
Skinner, who left the job in April 2002, said he chaired a three-person panel that examined the vests then on the market and decided there was little difference among them. The hand-picked panel recommended that the department issue custom specifications and put the job out to bid. Instead, Skinner said, the agency chose Second Chance, using a state-purchasing contract, which at the time bypassed the city comptroller's office.
(snip)
In February, 2000 and 2001, the city entered into two contracts worth a total of $2 million. Only one company, Georal, bid on the second contract, which was worth $1.5 million, a city official said.
Some of the doors are currently in place in the main visiting area at Rikers. The president of Georal, Alan Risi, is scheduled to be sentenced today in connection with charges that he overbilled the city by $50,000 to service doors on other buildings, the Manhattan district attorney's office said.
After Kerik left city government, he joined the board of Georal's parent company. According to a published report, he quit from the board just before becoming a candidate for the Homeland Security Department.
Thank you for resurrecting this. People have short memories, and connecting the recent Kerik events puzzle piece with this one forms a clearer picture. I hope people are beginning to see it.
(Dec 4, 2004) Mr. Giuliani said. "But it is bad for the company in that Bernie is irreplaceable."
What The ____???
Rooty is now saying he barely knew the guy .. what's his name ... Bernie Kerik.
So either a) Rooty was lying then, or b) Rooty is lying now. Oops, almost forgot .. or c) Rooty always lies.
:-)
My guess:
c) Rooty always lies.
This morning, I heard Cokie Roberts on ABC talking about a “love nest” that Rudy and Bernie shared.
Rudy, too? What did she say?
KERIK LOVE NEST FACED GROUND ZERO PIT .. Developing..NY Apartment Said to Have Been Scene of a Kerik Affair (for 9/11 workers, faced ground zero)
Hopefully, the details concerning their relationship will come up during the next round of debates. I think it's time for one of the other candidates to outline these matters (like the multiple marriages and divorces, the sdulterous affairs, the transvestite behavior, the pedophile priest scandal) and then confront Rudy directly. I think it's time for the other candidates to use the P word - pervert.
The evidence is already overwheliming and still growing.
Mine too.
I believe his past wives (plural) and mistresses (plural) would also back that up :-)
(Dec 4, 2004) Mr. Giuliani said. "But it is bad for the company in that Bernie is irreplaceable."I think most people assume that Kerik just attached himself to Giuliani to benefit from the relationship. What if it is the other way around?
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