I guess he was technically honest - it was ‘security’ that ran up the bills!
And what bills they were:
Man, that’s quite a hotel bill for the security detail! I’ve only once in my life stayed in a hotel in that sort of price range, and that was in Venice. Italy.
Only the best for Rudy’s bodyguards!
Geez, don’t any of these places have a Motel 6 or a Super 8? An Econo-Lodge? Sheesh.
Not that he had to be there in the first place, apparently:
Quite interesting stuff. I’m sure there’s a completely innocent explanation for it all.
Only thing fishy about it to me is the agencies to which they were charged. If a public official is given publicly funded protection, then by its nature it needs to be ongoing. Which means it is there whether they are carrying out official duties, making a booty call, or going off into the woods to whack off into a bush for five hours.
The President could make a public announcement that he was going to spend a week at an exclusive resort, do no work, and announce plans to have sex with 4-5 different random women while there. His Secret Service detail would incur significant costs because they would, by necessity have to be in and around the area at all times. He would be doing nothing illegal whatsoever. He’d arguably be doing nothing improper (President’s have a right to have a vacation, and all of them take them. Although considering the climate of our country I doubt many voters would be tolerant of a vacation where the goal is the have sex with a bunch of random women.)
I have no idea if the mayor of New York City is afforded ongoing protection or not, nor whether there are any limitations to this protection. I imagine the money was distributed in round-about ways because Giuliani was trying to hide an affair and didn’t want it to be publicly seen.
A bit sleazy, but Giuliani is plenty sleazy already so not really a surprise. I mean, he’s a New York, Italian-American politician, what do you expect?
I disagree. Martin. I don’t think the comparison with the President and Secret Service is particularly apropos. We’ve long accepted the notion that with respect to security, the Secret Service calls the tune: the President, Vice-President, their families, and anyone else they protect, do what they say.
But that’s not been the accepted rule for anyone else. Heck, do U.S. Senators and Representatives even have anyone guarding their doors when they go home at night? Governors and mayors may have security details, but they’re in a position to say, “this is too much” if that’s their opinion, and tell the state/city to cut back the detail.
I’d be very interested to know if Bloomberg has four NYPD police following him everywhere he goes. Or whether Rudy’s predecessor (Dinkins?) did the same.
But the notion that Rudy needed four cops with him when he was in Palm Beach or the Hamptons strikes me as totally ridiculous. This smacks more of the higher-class equivalent of a rap star wanting a posse to flaunt his importance than of a genuine security need, back in those pre-9/11 days.
And while my tone may have been jocular with respect to the posse’s hotel bills, I quite sincerely think they’re ridiculously expensive, and I’d expect any fiscal conservative to agree.
There’s a part of me that really wants Rudy to get the nomination, just to hear my Republican friends torture logic in explaining why Clinton’s philandering (and use of Arkansas state troopers to get away with it) was completely different.
You all do realize that one of the fallouts of Rudy’s whole divorce from Donna Hanover/getting together with Judith Nathan thing is that Rudy got kicked out of Gracie Mansion (the mayoral residence) by the courts, leaving it to Donna and the kids. I don’t know what that cost us taxpayers.
Whenever I’ve seen Bloomberg around New York, he’s had several obvious security types around him (almost certainly cops). I don’t know how many he takes when he goes out of town, but I’m sure it’s not too tough for him to load a couple of extra people into his private 737 and put them up in guest rooms at his Bermuda estate when he weekends there.
By the way, Bloomberg doesn’t live at Gracie Mansion either, preferring his West 79th Street town house (where he’s known to answer his listed phone number at times). Curiously, shortly after it was announced that Bloomberg wouldn’t be living at Gracie Mansion, the city received a large but anonymous donation for a major renovation there.
I don’t understand what the big deal is. The mayor of ferchristsake Baltimore has several security officers around her at all times, and B-more is a pissant little 'burg compared to NYC. The former Governor, Willie Don Schaffer, travels with a security guard, and he’s not even in office any more. Actually, I do understand what this big deal is, this is RTF’s recreational outrage against anyone with a ® next to their name du jour, but this one is weak even by those lowered standards.
Billing $400,000 in travel expenses to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office goes way beyond “fishy”. This guy’s moving past “fishy” so fast it’s been red-shifted.
I don’t find this particular aspect of Giuliani’s sleaziness any more upsetting than any of the (many) others. What I don’t like though, is people lining up to suck his dick just because he made a few phone calls on 9/11.
The odd accounting does seem pretty strange. But I can hardly get outraged about the mayor’s security detail. The NYPD has been protecting NYC mayors for a long time, and security details are always expensive. Ed Koch had several assassination threats which were taken seriously, and let us not forget His Honor William Gaynor! It’s almost the 100th anniversary of him being shot in the neck.
Weak, but not inconsistent: WTF is the mayor of Charm City doing with “several security officers around her at all times,” and if Schaffer still has a security guard, it had damned well better be a private guard that Maryland’s not picking up the tab for.
I see the point of giving ex-Presidents Secret Service protection, albeit at a much-reduced level, for the rest of their lives. But the same should NOT hold true of middlin’ level public officials: unless there have been specific threats of a credible nature, their security should end once their term of office does.
And maybe the mayor of B’more needs one cop outside her doorstep at night, but ferchrissake, that should pretty much be it when she’s not on city business. Officials at that level may be somewhat important, but they’re not so important that they need massive protection 24-7, wherever they go. If every public official of similar stature is bodyguarding up, (a) you’ll have to excuse me for not being aware of the trend, and (b) that trend is a crock.
Molly Ivors brings up an excellent point: if Rudy’s going to be protected through the night by a four-man security team, isn’t it rather odd that they were quartered 10+ miles away? (Per Politico, Nathan’s condo overlooked Noyack Bay (“Start”, and the security detail was put up at the Southampton Inn (“End”).)
I mean, I don’t expect them to be inside Judi Nathan’s condo, overhearing them doing the wild thing in the bedroom while they play pinochle in the living room, but if the mayor needs to be guarded, then you’d think they’d at least need to be close enough to hear the gunshots if someone sent a hit squad after him.
And if they’re going to be snoozing ten or twelve miles away, they can damned sure be quartered in a cheaper motel.
His job, like most jobs, gave him vacation time, which of course he could use to do what he wants, and security bills would naturally occur. However, sneaking off in the middle of the night while not on vacation is something different entirely, like a noraml person leaving their job midday for a two hour romp and not deducting the missed time at work, or even charging miles or expenses for it. And does the NY mayor really need four guards to escort him to the Hamptons? Its not like his mistress lived on 125th Street.
Bill Clinton, a real patriot, did his business while at his job
