« previous | MUCK HOME | next »
Today's Must Read
Bernie Kerik indicted!
Wait a minute, you say. Is this about the thing with his nanny? No. The thing where he conspired with Jeanine Pirro, Hillary Clinton's one-time Republican opponent for the Senate, to illegally spy on her own husband to catch him cheating? No again. So it's about the dozens of illegal gifts Kerik accepted from his friend, Lawrence Ray, while head of the New York Police Department and the city's Department of Corrections. Sort of.
Granted, it's hard to keep it all straight. But the indictment, expected to be unsealed today, reportedly concentrates on just two of Bernie Kerik's bad choices.
The first was to let Interstate Industrial Corporation, a construction company with alleged ties to the Gambino crime family, pay $165,000 to renovate his apartment. At the time, 1999, Kerik was New York City's corrections commissioner. Interstate also had Kerik's brother and the aforementioned Lawrence Ray, who was best man at Kerik's wedding, on the payroll. And coincidentally, Interstate was vying for business with the city. Although Interstate didn't end up getting that contract, Kerik did manage to vouch for the company to city investigators, telling them that Interstate was clean of mob ties. He failed to mention, however, that the company was paying for his apartment job.
The second bad decision was to accept $200,000 in rent from one of the city's biggest real estate developers, Steve Witkoff (who, by the way, owns my favorite NYC building, the Woolworth). Kerik let Witkoff pay the $9,000 in monthly rent for his Upper East Side digs around the time he left city government, but kept the whole thing off the books. (The feds apparently will not accuse Witkoff of wrongdoing.)
The rest of the charges in the indictment you can call fallout from those bad choices. He did not report either substantial sums of money when it came time to pay taxes. And he for some reason neglected to mention them on his 2004 application to run the Department of Homeland Security.
We'll get a copy of the indictment itself when it's available. For now, contemplate just how bad of a decision it was for Rudy Guiliani to recommend Kerik for the jobs of NYC's top cop, and then head of DHS.
Update/Correction: Actually, the nanny does appear to have made her way into the indictment.
Josh
Zachary
"Birds of a feather..."
November 9, 2007 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
twins separated at birth
November 9, 2007 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
One hell of a weird photo.
November 9, 2007 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
oh man, that photo cracks me up every time i see it. (looks like two old bears...lol)
steve gilliard used it for every rudy/bernie post he'd write up. rip, steve.
November 9, 2007 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
And what about Pat Robertson? An endorsement two days before Kerik's indictment makes Pat look like an even greater schmuck than usual.
November 9, 2007 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
And what do you think is THEE number one story on the cable news shows this morning?
O.J. of course.
November 9, 2007 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Of course no one wants all-out conflict, but historically, historical changes have come out of war.''
Little Carmine Lupertazzi
November 9, 2007 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
But it's just one of THOUSANDS of decisions Rudy made every day when he was mayor. (Does the decision whether to, for example, use elevator bank A or bank B to go upstairs, count?) He wants us all to know what a decider he is. What this country needs is another decider. Him. He admits that out of the thousands of decisions he made, some were mistakes. What's one mistake out of thousands? Hey, stuff happens when you're free. Or in Kerik's case, free stuff happens.
November 9, 2007 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Kerik let Witkoff pay the $9,000 in monthly rent for his Upper East Side digs... "
So... they've decided to prosecute the hooker, but not the john.... hmm...
November 9, 2007 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Were questions about the "nanny" ever resolved one way or another?
Also, Mr. Kerik's "tour of duty" in Iraq is hardly ever mentioned. His mission was to train Iraqui police, but apparently he slept most of the day, acted like a cowboy at night, and unexpectedly departed Iraq after a couple of months without accomplishing anything. (See: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran) How in the world was he ever nominated for Homeland Security Secretary after this?
November 9, 2007 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
You folks are asking substantive questions. I just want to know why he doesn't have a neck.
November 9, 2007 10:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't you see how this works? These aren't crimes when Republicans commit them (the good guys can't do bad things, see).
Whether it's illegal wiretapping, waterboarding, taking cash from a mobbed up contractor, undermining the Constitution, cheating on your wife, it's all fine if you're one of the good guys since you meant well and probably had a good reason. If, on the other hand, you're a Democrat and you change your position when confronted with new information, actually go to war and fight for your country, or heaven forbid, get caught cheating on your spouse who then decides to stick with you after 30+ years of marriage, well then you're a degenerate criminal who hates the United States whose happiest fantasy is seeing the Taliban rule this country.
See how it works now?
November 9, 2007 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Giuliani is Godfather to Kerik's two youngest daughters (Kerik's third marriage, too, by the way). I wonder if Giuliani ever spent any time at that apartment that got the $165,000 in renovations? Didn't Giuliani question where Kerik got all that money on his city salary?
November 9, 2007 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Godfather" - that explains it all!
November 9, 2007 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, . . if we focus on the Fascist Hell that would naturally result from a victory by this nasty and ambitious Little Man, we will all be in despair.
Let’s ask a more important question: is there really a Rudy? Look at the picture above: His head is not only much bigger than Kerick's, (who is in front of him), but of more intense color. It's obviously been pasted on by someone using their first version of Photoshop! Look - it's on too low, like the bauble on a string tie. In fact, I’ve never seen a picture of this guy that looked like he was done right, . . hmmmm.
Yes, I know, there are alleged videos of a Rudy-like character, but now I understand why they seemed to remind me of Jib-Jab. And it certainly explains his lack of depth.
I think we’ve been hacked.
November 9, 2007 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Would President Giuliani pardon Kerik or just commute his sentence?
November 9, 2007 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kerik was by no means the only corrupt hack in the Giuliani administration. I'm surprised Giuliani hasn't yet had to answer for his appointment of Russell Harding to head another city agency. (Harding was eventually convicted of stealing something like $400,000 in city funds and of child pornography.)
November 9, 2007 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is any Giuliani story more damning than the choice to locate the city's emergency command center within walking distance of City Hall, and then to use it as a love pad with Judy Nathan while still married to Donna Hanover? Or, to put it more directly, to endanger the lives of all those New Yorkers Giuliani claims to have defended in order to have a convenient place to commit adultery. Why this episode isn't front page every day astonishes me.
November 9, 2007 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
"For now, contemplate just how bad of a decision it was for Rudy Guiliani to recommend Kerik for the jobs of NYC's top cop, and then head of DHS."
Words fail. But how much worse of a decision was it for Giuliani to FIRE Bill Bratton and replace him with this known crook? I suppose LA is thrilled, but thank god for New York that Bloomy came in and got rid of Kerik before he could do any damage. Imagine if Rudy had gotten his little third-world dictator power grab after 9/11, and stayed in office?
I can't wait to see who Rudy picks as veep. And as Defense Secretary. As National Security Advisor. As Attorney General. LOL, I'll bet Rudy's head of FEMA will make Brownie look competent!
If it's a job that really, really matters, you can bet Rudy's gonna find the crookedest of his crooked buddies to do it!
November 9, 2007 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Kerik story is obviously important for the Giuliani link. It's might be worth looking back at what Giuliani had to say when Kerik had to withdraw from nomination to Homeland Security under the guise of a nanny-gate. Nanny-gate was of course cover for other massive corruption, Giuliani knew this and lied to the American people on camera that the reason was related to something else.
November 9, 2007 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
The more I hear and read about Rudy the more I see him as a moral equivalent to George Bush. The only difference is Rudy can speak-a-da-English. Let it be buddying up to Bernie Kerik, placing the Emergency Response Center in the World Trade Center, his appointment of Russell Harding, Rudy's foresight has proven inept. We simply do not need another 19th century thinker in the White House. As a Buddhist, Progressive Democrat and having to choose between two evils, I would rather see Huckabee in there rather than Rudy.
November 9, 2007 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's right, Russ Harding!
Rudy appoints an unqualified crook, praises him to high heaven, and then his administration stonewalls a reporter who starts investigating this guy's embezzlement (Harding eventually got 5 years). Wow, this doesn't sound the least bit like another President...
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0215,robbins,33781,5.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E7DC1F3DF932A25757C0A9649C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/H/Harding,%20Russell%20A.
November 9, 2007 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Where is Rudy's other hand?
November 9, 2007 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
It takes a military man to ask such questions!
November 9, 2007 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
More unbelievable evil:
www.truthwins.info
November 10, 2007 5:29 AM | Reply | Permalink