Rudolph Giuliani

• Born: May 28, 1944
• Birthplace: East Flatbush, New York, NY

Republican Rudolph Giuliani became mayor of New York City in 1994. A former lawyer and district attorney, he became known for his tough stance on crime. This quickly gave rise to allegations of police misconduct and brutality throughout the city, even as crime rates dropped dramatically. Widely criticized for his dictatorial, opportunistic leadership style and mean-spirited, abrasive demeanor, Giuliani 's tenure as mayor served to alienate the city's minority populations from the decision-making process, while making New York City more appealing to affluent tourists. However, in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the city, Giuliani, reaching the end of his final term as mayor, was anointed "America's mayor" by the media, and took on the veneer of a strong, effective leader. By the late 2010s, he had become a more controversial figure again, particularly after he started serving as a member of the legal team of President Donald Trump in 2018.

Background and Education

Rudolph William Louis Giuliani III was born May 28, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York. The only child born to second-generation Italian immigrants Harold and Helen Giuliani, he worked in his parents' restaurant throughout his childhood. As a boy, he attended Catholic schools.

Giuliani went on to attend Manhattan College, an all-male Catholic institution, and originally intended to enter the priesthood. After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1965, he decided to pursue a career in law instead, and earned his degree from New York University's law school in 1968.

That year, Giuliani married Regina Peruggi, his second cousin. Fourteen years later, the Catholic Church annulled the marriage.

Law and Politics

Throughout the 1970s, Giuliani worked in private practice, and also held a number of positions in the federal court system and the US Department of Justice. Originally a Democrat, he eventually defected to the Republican Party, and served under the Ford and Reagan administrations. In 1983, he was appointed US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

As US attorney, Giuliani was involved in a number of high-profile cases, prosecuting powerful organized crime figures, and arresting several prominent Wall Street financiers for insider trading. However, he was criticized for arranging dramatic, media-driven arrests without having enough evidence to bring suspects to trial.

During the 1980s, Giuliani first earned his reputation for being tough on crime, thanks to his public crusade to "clean up" New York City. His message focused on individual responsibility tempered by his political conservatism, which eroded his support among the city's liberal population. Many viewed Giuliani's plan to place ninety-day limits on residency at the city's homeless shelters as cruel. His response to the criticism: "The less you expect of people, the less you get. The more you expect, the more you get." Voters considered Giuliani's policies too harsh, and he lost his bid for the mayor's office in 1989 to liberal Democrat David Dinkins.

Mayor of New York

Prior to the 1993 mayoral election, Giuliani worked with a campaign consultant to create a new image as a "fusion candidate." He recruited minority candidates to run on his ballot, in an attempt to counter Dinkins' support among the Black community. Giuliani's platform included tax cuts, job creation, and a reform plan for school funding that would reduce administration costs and free up more money for classrooms and teachers. Many New Yorkers, worried about rising crime and drug use rates, began to warm up to Giuliani's "tough on crime" reputation.

In the end, Giuliani's anti-crime platform, and his experience as a prosecutor, gave him the edge over Dinkins, despite the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans by five to one in New York City. Giuliani was the first Republican to be elected mayor since 1965.

Upon taking office in 1994, Giuliani immediately began trimming the city's expenditures and workforce, while cracking down on crime. He employed corporate management techniques in reforming the New York City Police Department (NYPD), concentrating on the analysis of crime statistics and the lowering of tolerance for gun and drug offenses. He encouraged police to ticket minor violations, including littering, jaywalking, and reckless driving, and engendered a more aggressive approach to policing the city on all levels.

Crime Fighting and Controversy

During the late 1990s, the controversy surrounding the mayor began to attract nationwide media attention. In 1999, Giuliani attempted to withdraw funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which was displaying works that he personally found distasteful. A lawsuit prevented the unconstitutional move.

As crime rates fell throughout the city, distrust of the police and the Giuliani regime among the city's minority populations skyrocketed. Amid allegations of racial profiling and other indiscretions by the NYPD, several serious incidents of police brutality emerged as a result of Giuliani's policies. In 1997, a group of police officers tortured and raped a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima inside a Brooklyn precinct. In 1999, members of the controversial "Street Crimes Unit" murdered Amadou Diallo, firing forty-one bullets into the unarmed man. The next year, an off-duty Black police officer, Patrick Dorismond, was the victim of an unprovoked murder by another officer, who mistook Dorismond for a drug dealer. In each case, his callous, condescending responses to the incidents led many to believe that Giuliani was endorsing police violence, rather than trying to prevent it. With each new incident, the city's Black population became more angered and disillusioned with the Giuliani administration.

In December 2001, Giuliani announced that crime statistics had shown significant declines in the murder rate and other major crimes, which had fallen almost 20 percent from the previous year. Giuliani's critics accused him of taking credit for nationwide trends in crime reduction, citing the fact that most major cities were seeing decreases in violent crime, along with significantly less complaints of police brutality, which were on the rise in New York.

Giuliani entered the race for New York's vacant US Senate seat in 2000, running against Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. He withdrew from the race early on, however, when he announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. His ongoing public feud with his wife, Donna Hanover, and their subsequent divorce, also contributed to his decision to bow out of the race. Although Giuliani endorsed Republican candidate Rick Lazio, Clinton eventually won the Senate seat.

"America's Mayor"

Giuliani played a highly visible role in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, which resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the death of thousands of New Yorkers. Observers throughout the nation were impressed with Giuliani's uncharacteristically calm and caring demeanor during the tragedy, and the media dubbed him "America's mayor."

Despite calls from supporters to change the state constitution to allow the mayor to serve a third term, Giuliani stepped down at the end of his third term in 2001. He endorsed billionaire Republican Michael Bloomberg as his successor. After Bloomberg became mayor on January 1, 2002, Giuliani re-entered the private sector, and opened the Giuliani Partners consulting firm. The company specializes in security and crisis management for corporations and government agencies. In 2002, the mayor of Mexico City announced that he would be hiring Giuliani's firm to provide advice on how to cut the city's crime rate.

As criticism of his controversial tenure as mayor of New York City faded in the glow of his newfound popularity, Giuliani was named "Person of the Year" by "Time" magazine in 2001. The following year, he received the Ronald Reagan Presidential Freedom Award, and was granted an honorary knighthood from England's Queen Elizabeth II.

A television movie, Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story, aired on cable television in 2003. The movie starred James Woods as the former mayor, and was based on a book by Wayne Barrett, a writer for the Village Voice. Giuliani's own book, Leadership, written with Ken Kurson, was published in 2002, and detailed his experiences in New York City politics. Giuliani wed his third wife, Judith Nathan, in 2003, and in 2005 he became a partner in a Texas-based law firm that was then called Bracewell and Giuliani.

In February 2007, Giuliani officially announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination. Some criticized Giuliani for postponing his announcement, but supporters say he had the luxury of starting his campaign at any time he saw fit, given his nationwide name recognition.

Giuliani's campaign focused only a small amount of its resources on the 2008 Iowa caucus. Not surprisingly, Giuliani garnered only 4 percent of the vote in the caucus.

In the 2008 New Hampshire Republican primary, Giuliani placed fourth in overall voting. He earned roughly 9 percent of the total vote, finishing behind GOP colleagues Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and John McCain. In the Michigan primary, Giuliani earned under 3 percent of the vote, finishing a distant sixth. He also finished sixth in the Nevada caucus and the South Carolina primary. Despite his poor finishes in early voting, Giuliani continued to focus his attention on the Florida primary. However, Giuliani's bid for Florida proved unsuccessful. He placed third in the overall vote, earning 15 percent of the vote. Giuliani officially ended his candidacy on January 30, choosing to endorse Republican colleague John McCain in the 2008 presidential race.

By the mid-2010s, Giuliani had declined to enter the race either to become New York's governor in 2010 or president for the 2012 election and had focused instead on his legal businesses.

Later Career

After publicly backing and campaigning for Donald Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, he was hired by Trump as a member of his legal team in April 2018. The political landscape had become particularly divisive during Trump's campaign and presidency. The Trump administration had already faced criticism for various policies, such that Giuliani's association led him to be cast in a more controversial light once more. As part of the legal team, he was a prominent spokesperson concerning the federal investigation launched in 2017 to uncover any potential foreign interference in the 2016 election. He gave interviews on the subject as well as matters such as Trump's alleged affair with an adult film actress Stormy Daniels and a phone conversation Trump had with the president of Ukraine that led to an impeachment trial in early 2020. As the impeachment inquiry was underway, accusations that Giuliani had played a role were brought forth, and reports, which he denied, suggested that he had come under investigation.

In November 2020, Giuliani was placed in charge of a legal team to challenge the 2020 election results and handle any lawsuits related to alleged voter irregularities. His case against Pennsylvania was dismissed later that month. Several of his allegations against the companies that owned voting machines led to both Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic filing lawsuits against Giuliani in early 2021 for defamation and engaging in a disinformation campaign. Around the same time, in January 2021, he spoke at the Save America March rally that precipitated the Capitol riot. In response, the New York State Bar Association launched an investigation into whether Giuliani should be removed from its membership roles. Giuliani later made false claims that the Lincoln Project helped organize the riot; the group filed a lawsuit against him for defamation. His law license in New York state and the District of Columbia were revoked by the appellate court in 2021, as they found he misled the public and the courts in multiple statements. In the same year, he was subjected to search warrants, interviews, and continual investigations into his conduct. In August 2022, he was required to testify in front of a grand jury concerning his role in the efforts to influence Georgia's 2020 election results. He was also subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in 2022 and by federal prosecutors in January 2023 concerning Trump campaign payments.

Bibliography

Brown, Pamela, et al. "Giuliani Says He Is Joining Trump's Legal Team to Help Bring Mueller Probe to a Conclusion." CNN, 20 Apr. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/04/19/politics/giuliani-trump-legal-team/index.html. Accessed 27 Apr. 2023.

"Federal Prosecutors Subpoena Giuliani Over Trump Campaign Payments." The Guardian, 10 Jan. 2023, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/09/giuliani-subpoena-federal-prosecutors-trump-campaign-payments. Accessed 27 Apr. 2023.

Hettena, Seth. "What Happened to America's Mayor?" Rolling Stone, 17 May 2020, www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rudy-giuliani-new-york-trump-997712. Accessed 27 Apr. 2023.

"Rudy Giuliani Fast Facts." CNN, 10 Oct 2022, www.cnn.com/2013/05/30/us/rudy-giuliani-fast-facts/index.html. Accessed 27 Apr. 2023.