October 14, 2019
Is it possible? Could Rudy Giuliani be indicted by the office of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, the same office he headed with such grandiosity?
How could he have gotten himself into this mess, doing dirty work for President Trump, partnering with two crooks from the Ukraine arrested for campaign finance violations while digging up dirt on Trump’s potential Democratic opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter?
And we don’t yet know what backstage role Rudy played in Trump’s recalling our Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
A former top NYPD official who worked with Rudy when he was mayor says Giuliani has gotten himself into this position because “He craves the attention he’s lacked since serving as mayor. He doesn’t have the bully pulpit that he once had. He misses having the authority that working for Trump gives him. With Trump, he’s back in prime time. He matters again.”
A former city official, who was with Rudy at Ground Zero on 9/11, has a different take. He says, “I think he’s lost it. I really think he’s suffering from a mental defect. At his last anniversary dinner [which he holds every year for longtime friends] he accused Mayor de Blasio of being a cocaine addict. His reasoning was that the mayor was always late.”
Those two indicted Ukrainian guys [Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman], the former city official says, “are an indication of the company he is keeping. When he was mayor he was always careful who he was seen with. I heard him say that. He wouldn’t go near anyone who had an odor.
“He is now about as wacky as Trump. What is driving him? Why is he championing this guy? Unless that is their strategy — for him to deflect criticism and take the heat for Trump. Maybe that is the plan. But could Rudy be that stupid?”
HUNTER. No matter how you feel about Trump, no matter how much you may despise him and want to see him impeached — describing Hunter Biden’s $50,000-monthly payout from a Ukrainian energy company when his father, the vice president, held the Ukrainian portfolio as merely poor judgement is an insult to our intelligence — and to honest journalism.
Writing in the New Yorker, Steve Coll, the dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, who presumably understands the precision of language better than most, describes Hunter’s actions this way: “Hunter, a lawyer, accepted a lucrative seat on the board of one of Ukraine’s largest private gas companies…. [His] decision to accept the board seat when his father was the vice president … showed questionable judgement. …”
Hunter a lawyer? A more accurate description is that he was a troubled young man, a recovering drug addict and alcoholic with a tempestuous personal life, unable to keep a job. In short, he had no qualifications whatsoever for the Ukrainian board seat.
His decision to accept the seat, Coll writes, when his father was vice president showed questionable judgement? No, it was far more than that. It was disgraceful on both his and, more importantly, Papa Joe’s part, for allowing him to accept it.
Coll concludes: “Still, according to Ukrainian officials, no evidence of wrongdoing …has been found.” Steve, give us a break.