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Giuliani Should Not Be a Favorite Edward I. Koch "Guiliani: Nasty Man" is a book that I wrote in 2000 when Rudy was considering running for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton. However, because he was then suffering from prostate cancer, Rudy decided not to run. Today, he has not only recovered, he is the Republican front-runner in the race for president of the U.S. Now that Rudy is back in the limelight, the publisher of "Guiliani: Nasty Man," Barricade Books, intends to republish it with a new introduction by me. Many political pundits believe that Republican Rudy and Democrat Hillary will end up the nominees of their respective parties. I am supporting Hillary. However, were she not the Democratic nominee, I expect to support whichever Democrat wins the nomination. In my opinion, it would be very harmful to our country if Rudy were to become president. Rudy simply does not tell the truth when it suits him not to. When he ran for mayor in 1993 against David Dinkins, Rudy asked me to lunch with him, hoping to persuade me to support him. When David Dinkins defeated me in the 1989 Democratic primary, I supported him in the general election. David acknowledged the critical importance of my support. I decided that I could not support him for re-election in 1993 because of the 1991 Crown Heights riots, when black mobs ran uncontrolled through the streets of Crown Heights in anti-Semitic riots.
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Yankel Rosenbaum, a lubavitcher Jew, was killed; dozens of Jews were injured; and Jewish homes and businesses were vandalized. The lack of an adequate police response was attributed, by Governor Cuomo's appointee Richard H. Girgenti the state's criminal justice director, to Dinkins' failure to take charge and require the police to do their job and protect the lubavitcher community from the raging mobs. As mayor, I worked with Rudy when he was U.S. attorney. He had been very cooperative and when I asked him to become involved with the local drug dealing by drug pushers selling crack, heroin and cocaine — which the U.S. attorney generally did not do — he agreed. He established what came to be called "Federal Day," when the resources of his office would be applied to prosecuting low-level drug pushers. Federal sentences were much tougher in the U.S. District Court than in the state criminal courts. In my third term, Rudy investigated corruption in New York City government which involved Borough President Donald Manes and county leader Stanley Friedman and several other city employees. Manes committed suicide before he was indicted. Friedman was convicted. Rudy, responding to a question at a public meeting concerning my involvement said, "I think I know as much about these investigations as anyone knows, including a lot of confidential material, and there's not a single shred of evidence or suggestion that Mayor Koch knew of crimes that were being committed by several of the Democratic leaders and the borough presidents, or had any involvement in those crimes, or would have done anything other than turn them in if he had found out about them."
In 1993, I asked Rudy why he had the U.S. marshal handcuff several stockbrokers when leading them out of their offices, after arresting them, shaming them before their colleagues. The arrested stockbrokers were ultimately absolved of wrongdoing in the matter. He responded that he had nothing to do with that decision, saying, "It was the agent's decision because the brokers refused to leave, thinking the arrest was a joke." I don't believe that is true. I also asked Rudy why he allowed Sukhreet Gabel, daughter of the late Justice Hortense Gabel, to tape her mother on the telephone in order to provide evidence to help in the prosecution of her mother. Both Hortense Gabel and Bess Myerson who served as Cultural Affairs commissioner were exonerated of all charges. Rudy said that he had "told [Sukhreet] not to, but she inadvertently pressed the wrong button and taped her." He went on, "I explained this to the judge at the arraignment." I don't believe that is true. His latest failed test of veracity, this time under oath, is best explained by a New York Times' reporter's analysis of March 30, 2007. The analysis related to Rudy's appearance before a grand jury testifying on his appointment of Bernard Kerik as New York City police commissioner. The article stated, "Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik's relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik's appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records. Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony. Mr. Giuliani's testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik's appointment as the city's top law enforcement officer. "Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik's entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation's homeland security secretary. In his testimony, given in April 2006, Mr. Giuliani indicated that he must have simply forgotten that he had been briefed on one or more occasions as part of the background investigation of Mr. Kerik before his appointment to the police post." Can you imagine Rudy accepting such testimony from a criminal defendant? Is he any different than I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby who was recently convicted of perjury, having relied on a defense of faulty memory? Ridiculous. I don't believe Giuliani for a moment. Rudy, who had supported gun control as mayor, but now seeking the support of the Republican anti-gun control ranks, says his support for controls only related to New York City. Not true, since he supported the Brady Bill which applied gun controls to the entire nation. The Times reports, "As mayor of New York City, Rudolph W. Giuliani became the favorite Republican of gun control advocates. He spoke in favor of a licensing system for gun owners that would require trigger locks and firearms training, and he lobbied Congress to outlaw most military-style assault weapons. "He was the only Republican mayor to join a lawsuit by dozens of cities against the gun industry, and he complained that Southern states had lax gun laws that fed the illegal weapons trade in the Northeast. But as a presidential candidate, Mr. Giuliani now talks very differently about guns as he tries to allay the concerns of Republican primary voters. He says he supports the right of individuals to bear arms, and that states — and generally not the federal government — should decide whether to put some limits on that right. "Perhaps most striking, Mr. Giuliani's campaign says it is not clear that he would support a measure he once championed, an assault weapons ban. In explaining his past positions, he and his aides say they were about fighting crime in New York City when he was mayor, adding that restrictions that make sense there can be wrong for other parts of the country. The most important example is that as mayor he advocated national standards, while recently he has said that gun control issues should be decided by state and local governments." There will be much more on Rudy's record as he is examined by the national media. I believe the Giuliani myth is already starting to unravel.
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