Giuliani's Lie in State Court About 2000 Kerik Warning Now Being Noticed By Traditional Media

Dems Will Win

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Sun Nov-11-07 10:04 AM
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Giuliani's Lie in State Court About 2000 Kerik Warning Now Being Noticed By Traditional Media

Edited on Sun Nov-11-07 10:33 AM by Dems Will Win

This story has legs!

The failings of Bernard Kerik have been brought to book by his 16-count federal indictment that also exposes cracks in the judgment of his chief enabler, GOP presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.

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Long before Kerik's current troubles, in fact even before he was named police commissioner in 2000, then-mayor Giuliani ignored warnings about his shady ethics. First, Giuliani flatly denied to the press that he was been warned about Kerik lobbying city officials for Interstate Industrial Corp., a construction company reportedly linked to organized crime. Years later, before a grand jury, Giuliani changed his denial to a muddle about having been told that he had been warned, but maintaining that he, himself, did not remember, according to The New York Times.

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As the gentleman is best known by his valet, the politician-on-the-make is best known by his bodyguard and driver. No secret, no matter how intimate, escapes the eyes and ears of the bodyguard-driver. Already we know that the thrice-married former mayor and the thrice-married Kerik ran scandalously afoul of the "moral values" vows given lip service by the likes of the zany Rev. Pat Robertson.

In his autobiography, Kerik spared us whatever juice he may have observed while chauffeuring Giuliani around. In fairness, there may have been none. But the detective and the former prosecutor have established a bond that surpasses all other explanations.

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Should this woefully unsuited candidate defy the White House gravitational field, however, Kerik may well be in for a presidential pardon.

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-oppay115454628nov11,0,3107857.column

In their questioning of Mr. Giuliani last April, Bronx prosecutors sought repeatedly to determine how much the mayor remembered being told about Mr. Kerik�s problems, and what, if anything, he had done about the information.

Throughout his questioning, Mr. Giuliani said he remembered close to nothing about what he had been told about the broader background investigation of Mr. Kerik or what he had done after hearing it. He testified that he remembered being told something about Mr. Kerik�s experience as a security consultant in Saudi Arabia, but little else.

He testified, as well, that he could not remember if he had ever discussed the issues with Mr. Kerik directly.

At one point, a senior Bronx prosecutor, Stephen R. Bookin, asked Mr. Giuliani, �As you sit here today, your testimony is, and correct me if I am wrong, that you don�t recall ever being told that a close friend of your correction commissioner had been indicted in a federal case?�

Mr. Giuliani responded: �I don�t recall that until 2004. I can�t tell you that it wasn�t, but I don�t � I don�t � I don�t remember.�

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The prosecutor then asked Mr. Giuliani whether, if the information had been presented to him with as much emphasis, he would have appointed Mr. Kerik police commissioner.

�If he told it to me the way you described it to me, no,� Mr. Giuliani replied. �If he had told it to me in a different way because, maybe he didn�t know all of the facts, or had come to a different conclusion about the facts, then maybe I would have � I can�t tell you that.�

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Several newspapers at the time were already pursuing stories about his relationship with Interstate, which were published in the succeeding days. It is unclear to what extent Mr. Kerik�s relationship with the company was made clear to the White House before his nomination.

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�He told me that Interstate didn�t do the work, that another company had done it legitimately, that he had the checks to show he paid for it,� Mr. Giuliani said.

Mr. Giuliani testified that he took Mr. Kerik�s word for it and did not ask to see the canceled checks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/us/politics/30rudy.html?pagewanted=all

Please recommend! If Giuliani's lies in Kerik's state court case get picked up by the tradmed, he could be finished (hopefully)...

By the way, do you believe that in the 2006 court case Giuliani truly did not "remember" the warnings about Kerik, or was he lying, trying to protect his political career??