I had the pleasure of meeting Rudy Giuliani back in 1986 when I was a reporter for The New York Times covering corruption cases in the city. At that time, New York was plagued with so much municipal sleaze that a detective joked about city employees turning themselves in at the FBI office.
Giuliani, who served as the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, found himself at odds with Robert Morgenthau, the respected Manhattan district attorney who inspired the character in “Law & Order.” Giuliani believed Morgenthau was unnecessary and withheld information from him.
Already renowned for his crusade against organized crime, Giuliani was relentless in his pursuit of justice. He even gained fame for perp-walking white-collar criminals on Wall Street, although not all the charges stuck. Morgenthau, on the other hand, had a quiet determination, while Giuliani commanded a loyal following, almost like a cult leader.
Interestingly, Giuliani had initially considered becoming a priest but eventually chose a different path when he realized he didn’t want to live a celibate life. When I first met him, he spoke passionately about good versus evil and right versus wrong. His eyes sparkled when discussing his mission to root out those who had betrayed the public trust. He followed in the footsteps of Thomas Dewey, aiming to clean up corruption and climb the political ladder.
The morning my story ran, Giuliani called the newspaper demanding to speak with my editor. He felt the article portrayed him as self-righteous. Little did he know that his fall from grace would make him seem even more unhinged. It’s almost like a Puccini opera, with an opera-loving prosecutor turned mayor spiraling into lawlessness, facing multiple divorces, depression, financial troubles, sexual harassment allegations, and even a humiliating appearance in “Borat.”
Giuliani went from fighting corruption to fueling it, transforming from a crime-buster to a defendant himself in the Georgia RICO case involving an alleged plot to steal the election. It’s not often we witness a prosecutor morph into a mobster.
After spending years prosecuting New York’s notorious crime families, Giuliani willingly submitted himself to the control of the weakest mob boss of all: Donald Trump.
We observed the attempted coup unfold, but it is truly shocking to see the Georgia indictment referring to “this criminal organization,” “members of the enterprise,” “corrupt solicitation,” and “racketeering activity.”
Trump, influenced by his mentor, mob lawyer Roy Cohn, always relished playing the role of a gangster – a tough guy who intimidated his adversaries and admired mobsters like Gotti for their stoic behavior during trials. As his former lawyer Michael Cohen testified, Trump ran his business like a mobster, using a code and delegating dirty work to trusted individuals while eliminating perceived threats.
Trump’s fascination with mobsters extended even further. He admired their ruthlessness and incorporated elements of their tactics into his own leadership style. This fascination also extends to figures like Putin and Kim Jong-un, whom he sees as “bad-ass” individuals.
Staying true to his history of not paying his debts, Trump has turned a deaf ear to Giuliani’s desperate pleas for financial assistance with his legal bills.
In a desperate attempt to remain relevant, Giuliani became Trump’s legal enforcer, championing conspiracy theories surrounding Ukraine, the Bidens, and election fraud. He played a significant role in both of Trump’s impeachment proceedings.
As noted by the esteemed journalist Wayne Barrett in his book “Rudy: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani,” Giuliani has his own family ties to the mob. While his father taught him to despise the criminal underworld, some of Giuliani’s cousins had connections to organized crime. Barrett revealed that Giuliani’s father even faced legal trouble himself, having been involved in loan-sharking and armed robbery.
Giuliani explained that his family moved from Brooklyn to Long Island to distance themselves from their mob-linked relatives, which partially influenced his decision to pursue a career in law enforcement.
This twisted narrative of Giuliani trying to defeat the mob but ultimately aligning himself with a wannabe mobster like Trump is both comical and grotesque. Their inability to handle the law proficiently has led them down a path of self-destruction, resembling a dime-store psychodrama.
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