Free Republic

The day-to-day operations of Rudy Giuliani's consulting company have been formally turned over to one of the candidate's longtime advisers - and the former mayor hasn't been to his office in more than a month..........."My role is chairman of Giuliani Partners," said Peter Powers, deputy mayor under Giuliani and a friend since childhood. "I run the company on a day-to-day basis; Rudy's role is none........He has an equity interest in the in the firm, but he is not involved in the management of the firm. He is not involved in any clients."

A former Giuliani administration official says he's "sick" that his little-known agency was used to hide taxpayer money that funded police escorts during the ex-mayor's Hamptons romantic rendezvous. "The cover-up and explanations have been so disingenuous," said Brendan Sexton, Procurement Policy Board Chair in 2000.....which was charged $29,757 for travel bills racked up by Giuliani's security detail as he hung out with then-girlfriend Judith Nathan on Long Island. "It's disturbing that any government organization could be used to conceal from the public how their money was being spent."

TALKING POINTS MEMO is swimming in credit card receipts from Rudy Giuliani's administration; one thing in particular has struck us: in 2001, apparently with an eye to future globetrotting, Giuliani's administration sent a check for $400,000 to American Express. Though the amount was billed to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, an office that provides lawyers for indigent defendants, the money served as an advance against Giuliani's future travel, and other expenses later incurred by the mayor's office and his security detail. The unusually large prepayment, as yet unreported, adds weight to the theory that the Giuliani administration was using accounting...

Giuliani's secret relationship forced taxpayers to pay a mayoral aide's hotel tab according to city documents....while Giuliani was visiting Judith Nathan at her LI condo. Taxpayers also paid security detail motel bills in Pennsylvania, Nathan's home state......records show two charges for gas on April 8, 2000, in Tannersville, Pa, about 1/2 outside Nathan's hometown of Hazleton. It isn't clear if security was guarding both Nathan and Giuliani, or if she was alone at the time......Nathan began receiving police protection, not long after her relationship with Giuliani became public.....paid from obscure mayoral agencies.........

CLEARWATER, Fla. Sliding in the polls, Giuliani is no longer sure he can win the nomination--taking Florida after losing early states that traditionally determine the nominees. Giuliani's problem is not so much tactical as it is substantive. During Wednesday's debate, Republicans saw the Rudy they've been doing their best to pretend did not exist. He wasn't the crime-fighting, terrorist-bashing, smiling hero they've come to like so much....he's the gun-grabbing, abortion-supporting philanderer that Republicans don't waste much time with - especially in Florida where conservatives turned the Terri Schiavo case into a national cause.

Giuliani says obscure city agencies were billed for out-of-town credit-card charges of his mayoral security detail because the NYPD was so slow in paying its bills.......the Mayor's Office spent $165,985 for out-of-town travel in fiscal 2000 and in 2001 $184,796. It allocated another $143,867 to 12 agencies under Giuliani's control in 2000 and $435,215 in 2001, periods when he was conducting an extramarital affair with Nathan, now his third wife. Over two years, $579,082 in travel bills - including rental cars, motel bills and plane tickets - run up by Giuliani's security team didn't immediately appear as an expense incurred...

Giuliani tapped budgets of obscure city agencies to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel expenses in 1999 and 2000 when the married Mayor was secretly dating future wife Judith Nathan according to a sensational report..... Auditors spotted a $34,000 expense for out-of-city travel at the Loft Board. The board's director insisted the tab wasn't run up at the tiny agency, which regulates lofts.....then $143,867 in nonlocal travel at 12 small mayoral agencies in fiscal 2000, including $10,054 for the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities turned up...on top of $165,985 in "nonlocal travel" billed directly to the Mayor's...

Giuliani could be grilled about law-breaking pal Kerik, 9/11, gay marriage - his backing the hated Boston Red Sox, according to 5,000 questions submitted for tomorrow's YouTube Republican debate co-sponsored by CNN in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Fred Thompson said NYC isn't a model for the rest of the country....Giuliani should stop basing (gun-control) on his time as mayor. Giuliani and Hillary are rolling out splashy dueling bus tours. Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses are less than six weeks away.......Clinton and husband Bill plan to blanket the state virtually nonstop. Monday, Clinton jets to NH. This weekend Giuliani goes to Concord, then to City Hall in Manchester. NH votes Jan. 8. Giuliani trailed front-runner, Mitt Romney, in the latest CNN/WMUR poll...with 16% to Romney's 33%. John McCain has crawled back to 2nd place with 18%.

Fred Thompson ....campaigning at a NH gun store..... told reporters Giuliani too often turns to his time as NYC mayor to explain his support for stronger gun restrictions. "....he was at bill-signing ceremonies with NY Sen Chuck Schumer and President Clinton and others for gun-control legislation over the years. Of course, he's not as outspoken about it any more."

Giuliani declared Americans should not expect a “pretense of perfection” from candidates"......he believes Obama’s conversation (about previous drug use) was "completely appropriate......."all of us that run for public office--are all human beings. If we haven’t made mistakes don’t vote for us cause we got some big ones that are gonna happen in the future and we won't know how to handle them.”

**** Kerik is a stench in the nostrils of all those in law enforcement Let the trial begin. NAMES REDACTED Nanuet **** Kerik has seriously undermined Giuliani's bid for president.....and made President Bush look foolish for nominating him for the Homeland Security post.......appears a complete career turnaround - from cop to inmate is just around the bend. Farmingdale **** Kerik needs to start talking honestly regarding the widespread corruption in and around New York politics, the courts and the legal system. Manhattan **** Guiliani is stuck with Kerik. Bring him on. Silver Spring, Md.

Judith Regan, former book publisher, says a senior News Corporation executive encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004. The lawsuit asserts that the executive wanted to protect the presidential aspirations of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor, who had appointed him NYC police commissioner and had recommended him for the federal post. --SNIP-- “Defendants were well aware that Regan had a personal relationship with Kerik,” the complaint says. “.....a senior News Corporation executive told Regan that he believed she...

April 11, 2005 MEXICO CITY Giuliani spent a day-and-a-half in January 2003 touring Mexico City's danger and tourist zones, protected by a motorcade of a dozen bulletproof SUV's, 400 officers, and a helicopter. He was mobbed and cheered a Giuliani aide told The NY Sun. Two years later, the cheering has stopped. In January 2005, Mexico City police chief told local reporters, "I am no fan of Giuliani." Monica Rojas, then-deputy director of the statistics department of the Mexico City police department said "The ideas and the concepts they conveyed to us, but they never explained how to achieve them."...

Rudy Giuliani stakes his presidential bid on his record of cutting crime - but the union representing NYC's 30,000 police officers won't support him. " NYC PBA could never support Rudy Giuliani for any elected office," PBA President Patrick Lynch told The Post. Lynch also claimed that "Rudy Giuliani has no real credentials as a terrorism fighter."

When Giuliani walked out of City Hall six years ago, he had $2M in the bank.....Then came book deals, speaking tours and partnership at a powerful Washington lobbying house. None would prove more lucrative than the small consulting firm Giuliani and his most trusted aides founded in 2002 in an angular glass tower at 5 Times Square. Since 2002, Giuliani Partners has formed several subsidiaries--Giuliani Capital Advisors - an investment since sold - Giuliani Compliance Japan and security companies called Giuliani-Kerik and Giuliani Security & Safety........ By the time Giuliani declared for president last spring, his firm grossed an estimated...

EXCERPT William J. Bratton, former NYC police commissioner under Mayor Giuliani endorsed Gov Spitzer's plan to license illegals. Chief Bratton was NYC police commissioner from 1994-96, during the first term of Mayor Giuliani, but the two men famously feuded, with Giuliani resentful that Mr. Bratton — a pioneer of the city’s Compstat program — was getting credit for the city’s reduction in crime. In March 2007, Giuliani began trying to mend fences with Bratton and met privately; afterward, Mr. Bratton said he “enjoyed” the tête-à-tête. In May 2007, the two men met in Los Angeles. In a statement released by...

December 20, 2004 Then-Jails Boss Kerik Kept Pal Abreast of City Probe With Insider Details E-mails sent by Bernard Kerik when he headed the city Correction Department appear to show him offering to provide inside details of the city's investigation into a mob-linked firm. The E-mails, the existence of which the Daily News revealed (Dec 19, 2004), were sent by Kerik to Lawrence Ray in 1999. Ray, who was the best man at Kerik's wedding, was then working for Interstate Industrial, a major city contractor suspected of ties to organized crime. Ray and Kerik parted ways after Ray was indicted...

Mug shot of Bernard Kerik, taken at the Bronx District Attorney's Office, after he pleaded guilty to conflict of interest charges in June 2006. Rudy Giuliani's disgraced ex-police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, is back on the wrong side of the law - a federal grand jury slapped him with a new indictment yesterday.....Kerik's corruption and tax charges included tax evasion, conspiracy and receiving unlawful gratuities.

December 12, 2004 Kerik Got Thousands, Didn't Report it EXCERPT TheDaily News probe calls into question Kerik's conduct while holding two of the city's most important public offices (to which Mayor Giuliani apppointed him). The Daily News probe revealed that for many years, one of Kerik's main benefactors was Lawrence Ray, best man at Kerik's 1998 wedding, according to Ray, other sources and checks shown by Ray to The News. Ray and another Kerik pal, restaurant owner Carmen Cabell, helped bankroll Kerik's 1998 wedding reception, contributing nearly $10,000. --SNIP-- After Kerik was named correction commissioner in January 1998, he pleaded...