More score settling. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez opens fire on Bernie Kerik's time training the Iraqi police in Iraq:

"He is a very energetic guy. He is very confident - overconfident to an extent - and he is very superficial in his understanding of the requirements of his job," Sanchez said. "His whole contribution was a waste of time and effort."...

Sanchez said Kerik focused more on "conducting raids and liberating prostitutes" than training the Iraqis.

"They'd get tips and they'd go and actually raid a whorehouse," Sanchez told The News. "Their focus becomes trying to do tactical police operations in the city of Baghdad, when in fact there is a much greater mission that they should be doing, which is training the police."...

Kerik denied arresting any prostitutes in Iraq and said the Army always knew about his operations.

Boy, times are bad for Rudy's crew. Just as Giuliani is hunkering down for his electoral Alamo in Florida, Bernie Kerik got knocked down yesterday before even getting a chance to get his gloves on.

The judge disqualified his lawyer from the case because he'd been present when Kerik had given several false statements to his lawyers, which were then transmitted to the Bronx district attorney's office. This was a "severe" conflict of interest, the judge ruled.

So now Kerik has to get himself a new lawyer. The only good news for him is that, with Giuliani's candidacy annihilated, there's sure to be less media scrutiny when he does finally go to trial.

We tried to figure out just what Kerik had been up to during his three-and-a-half months running the Interior Ministry in Iraq before. So, apparently, did the makers of the brutal Iraq documentary No End in Sight. Though Kerik was interviewed for the film, his section was left on the cutting room floor, but it will be included in a forthcoming book by the same name from the filmmaker. In an excerpt run by The New York Post, Kerik says that he was called in to see Defense Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in May of 2003 to discuss policing policies in Iraq. Ten days later, he was on his way to Iraq. He prepared for the job in part by watching A&E documentaries on Saddam Hussein.

Kerik may have been the "eyes and ears of the Oval Office on the ground" in Iraq, but he says he opposed perhaps the most disastrous decision made then, which was to disband the Iraqi military. And he opposed the "momentum" to do the same with the Iraqi police. Good call.

When the interviewer got on the topic of Kerik's trouble with the law, he was less forthcoming. Asked whether he thought it "raises questions about your judgment and whether it was wise to appoint you," he said no, then:

Ferguson: "How come so many legal problems?"

Kerik: "It's a political year... Look, I'm not here to talk about my case. I'm here to talk about Iraq, so let's talk about Iraq."

Saved! That's one less trial Bernie Kerik -- and Rudy Giuliani -- have to worry about.

Granted, Kerik still faces trial on a sixteen-count criminal indictment for accepting bribes, cheating on taxes, and lying to the federal government. But no doubt it's good news for the Giuliani camp. Every little bit counts!

Yesterday, Eric DeRavin, a former New York City Correction Department officer, settled his discrimination lawsuit against the city. He'd charged that Kerik, when he led the department back in the 90's, had passed him over for promotions because he was African-American -- and because DeRavin made the mistake of crossing Kerik's mistress, Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero (one of Kerik's two mistresses who later visited Kerik at his 9/11 love nest). The court dismissed the claims about Pinero, but the city settled on the race discrimination claim for $125,000. The trial was due to begin soon, and Kerik was sure to testify. "I'm going to accept $125,000 and go away," DeRavin said, but added: "I hope Mr. Kerik gets his just desserts."

So Giuliani is spared the spectacle of Kerik testifying about why he'd passed over an African-American officer six times for promotion, the renewed focus on Kerik's romantic liaisons, and questions about why he hadn't been concerned about the fact that two different correction officers had sued the city, alleging that Kerik had retaliated against them because they'd crossed his mistress.

Because this wasn't the only suit, and it isn't the first time that the city has settled. Another correction officer, Herbert Reed, sued the city, claiming that Kerik and his underlings filed bogus disciplinary and sexual harassment actions against him after he wrote up a friend of Pinero's for insubordination. The city settled that one for $250,000 in 2003.

These were both longstanding suits (DeRavin filed in 2000, Reed in 2001), filed long before Giuliani was forced to break with Kerik in the wake of his disastrous nomination to be Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security in December, 2004. But Giuliani would probably say that we should file it away as just another aspect (click here for all the aspects) of Giuliani's admitted "mistake" in supporting Kerik for the nomination (after first appointing him commisioner of corrections, then the NYPD, then making him his business partner). Everybody makes mistakes, right?

Bernie Kerik had a talent for making wealthy friends -- and then hitting them up for money. It was a talent that prosecutors say crossed the line into bribery on at least one occasion.

Over the weekend, The New York Times revealed the details of another one of those deals. In 2003, while Kerik was on his short stint with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Israeli billionaire and industrialist Eitan Wertheimer loaned Kerik $250,000.

But it wasn't what you'd call a straightforward loan. The money went first to Kerik's friend and Brooklyn businessman Shimon Cohen, who then passed it on to Kerik. It was provided with no interest, no conditions, and seemingly no questions asked.

There's even more grounds for suspicion. The loan only came to light after the Bronx district attorney's office and New York City’s Department of Investigation launched an investigation of Kerik's personal finances in 2005. They interviewed Cohen in June of that year about the loan -- he fessed up to having given the money, but said nothing about the fact that Wertheimer had financed it. Nine days later, two years after the loan was originally given, Kerik paid off the loan in full -- with interest.

The indictment of Kerik earlier this month included a charge of lying to the Federal Government about the loan (Both Wertheimer and Cohen are identified only as John Does in the indictment.). That's because when Kerik filled out a financial disclosure form that covered his time in Iraq, he didn't report it. Prosecutors pointedly mention that Wertheimer's companies do "business with the federal government." In other words, it was precisely the sort of conflict of interest that financial disclosure requirements are designed to expose.

Now, the open question is what Wertheimer thought he was getting for his money.

Read more »

Finally, evidence suggesting that the White House knew that Bernie Kerik had much more than a nanny problem.

It took only a week for President Bush's nomination of Kerik to replace Tom Ridge as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to fall apart. And its abruptness -- and the reason given -- has always been cause for suspicion.

On December 2, 2004, President Bush announced that his pick to replace Tom Ridge as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was Bernard Kerik. On December 10th, a Friday, at 8:30 p.m., Kerik suddenly withdrew his nomination, explaining in a statement that he'd discovered that his former housekeeper and nanny might not be a legal immigrant and that he hadn't paid taxes on her. It was the sole reason given for his withdrawal, both in his statement and in subsequent comments by White House officials.

But Kerik's indictment last Thursday indicates that the White House was dealing with bigger problems: Kerik's ties to the mob.

Read more »

A significant portion of the federal criminal case against former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik involves alleged lies Kerik told White House officials in both written and oral statements when he was seeking positions in the Bush Administration.

So far, there have been no reports of the White House receiving, let alone complying with, grand jury subpoenas in the Kerik case. However, a review of the indictment suggests that the White House may have turned over a number of records to federal investigators in addition to perhaps making current and/or former officials available for interviews with federal investigators and possibly for testimony to a grand jury.

How extensive was the White House's cooperation with the federal criminal investigation of Kerik? Will we see White House officials testifying at trial about their conversations with Kerik?

The indictment lays out a number of alleged lies told by Kerik to White House officials. False statements comprise seven counts of the sixteen-count indictment, including statements Kerik made to three unnamed White House officials, identified in the indictment as White House Official A, B and C, respectively.

---On October 29, 2002, the indictment says, Kerik fibbed to a "White House Official A" when he was applying for a position on an advisory committee to the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. The feds say that Kerik lied about having no household help (the famous nanny) and about various shady deals (he left out that a mob-tied company paid to renovate his apartment and that a Brooklyn businessman had loaned him $250,000).

Read more »

No rundown of Bernard Kerik's ethical shortcomings could ever hope to be comprehensive, but we've done our best. So here, without any further ado, is our grand catalogue. Thanks to TPMm research hounds Adrianne Jeffries, Will Thomas and Peter Sheehy and TPMm readers for all the help.

In today's indictment:

-- Bribery. Accepted $255,000 worth of renovations to his apartment in an upscale section of the Bronx from a mob-connected construction company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, that sought his help in winning city contracts. Kerik was Commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections at the time. He already admitted to charges from city prosecutors that the payments constituted an illegal gift.

-- Tax fraud. Kerik failed to report $236,269 in rent for his Upper East Side apartment where he lived from December 2001 to December 2003 with his family. One of the city's biggest real estate developers, Steve Witkoff, paid the $9,650 in monthly rent. Kerik asked for Witkoff's help with the apartment while he was still police commissioner of NYC, and the real estate mogul made the payments because the two "anticipated doing business in the future."

-- More tax fraud. Kerik also failed to disclose $20,000 in consulting fees from a computer software company and $75,953 in royalties for writing his autobiography.

-- Even more tax fraud. Kerik failed to report wages paid to his nanny (more about that below), claimed $80,000 in phony charitable contributions, and falsely claimed a home office deduction for a home he had not moved into yet.

-- False statements. Lied on application for head of Department of Homeland Security about the nanny, payments from the construction company, and other things he preferred to keep quiet.

From before Kerik's time in city government:

-- Deported from Saudi Arabia. In 1982, Kerik was hired to provide security for a Saudi Arabian hospital. Nine former hospital employees have argued that Kerik acted as enforcer for his employer, Nizar Feteih, who used the security team to keep an eye on a handful of female hospital employees, as well as the men with whom they were in contact. Kerik is accused of inappropriate surveillance, including wiretapping staff members.

Kerik declared one doctor disliked by Feteih as drunk and had him arrested (and later deported) under Saudi law. The outrage prompted an investigation by the Ministry of Health, which determined that many allegations of security abuse against Kerik were accurate. Kerik was fired over the incident and deported.

Kerik's many, many ethical shortcomings while working first as New York City corrections commissioner and then police commissioner:

Read more »

Much remains unclear about Bernard Kerik's three-and-a-half months in Iraq running the Interior Ministry. But he was crystal clear about sending one message to his subordinates: he was the "eyes and ears of the Oval Office on the ground," recalls one of them.

Samuel Juett was one of 13 members of the Department of Justice's "first team" in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. Juett, speaking from his Eau Claire, Wisconsin home, counts himself as an admirer of Kerik's -- "Oh, man, lay off my buddy Bernie," he said, laughing -- because Kerik was someone with little patience for bureaucracy or politics. As soon as Kerik arrived in Baghdad on May 18, 2003, he let it be known just from where his power derived.

"There could only be so many big dogs in the pen," Juett recalls. Kerik would drop hints of his proximity to the White House. "That was intimated in conversations with us," Juett says. For example, Kerik would tell his staff, "You know, when the President's office calls you on the phone at home at night, and tells you to get on the plane..." Or: "Two days ago, I was standing in the Oval Office, talking to the President. This is what he wants, and this is what we're gonna make happen." Juett doesn't know if that was true -- "but it was what he said."

Read more »

Here's one for the annals of not-so-subtle requests for bribes by public officials. The heart of the indictment against Bernard Kerik focuses on the fact that he accepted $255,000 worth of apartment renovations from Interstate Industrial Corporation (called XYZ in the indictment) while the company was seeking business from the city.

Interstate's problem was that they were suspected of ties to the Gambino crime family. City investigators were on the case, and if they discovered mob ties, game over: no city contracts. So Kerik, having asked Interstate if they could pay for renovations to his apartment (keep in mind, Kerik ran the city's department of corrections at the time), sat down with investigators to discuss Interstate.

He told them that no way was Interstate mobbed up. He added: "If I thought Interstate was mobbed up, do you think I'd let my brother work there?"

But in the indictment, prosecutors reveal an email that shows Kerik was just doing what he'd been paid to do. And having done his job so well "without question," he clearly thought he was owed more:

Shortly after attending this meeting, BERNARD B. KERIK sent [an Interstate employee] an email explaining that "I put my reputation and integrity on the line defending whatever [the Interstate employee] asked without question." (Emphasis in original). Later in that same email, KERIK complained that he felt like he was on "welfare" as compared to the life-style [the Interstate employee] lived. He explained that: "I'm walking on eggshells until this apartment is done. A bullshit $170,000., [sic] I had to beg, borrow and [expletive] for the down payment and I'm still [expletive] over the $5,000. [sic] I need for closing if it happens. Then the renovations."

Translation: I sold my integrity, but I'm still in the poor house. Give me more.

The fourteen count indictment adds up to a max of 142 years in prison and $4.75 million in fines. In addition to the "Theft of Honest Services" counts, which are basically bribery charges, the feds are after him for a whole lot of tax fraud (for which they've provided a handy chart here), and also making a number of false statements to the federal government when he was applying to head up the Department of Homeland Security. The infamous nanny, surely the least of Kerik's transgressions, are among the charged lies. Kerik has pleaded not guilty.

In a press conference today, federal agents and prosecutors laid out the case against Bernard Kerik:

FBI agent David Cardona, calling Kerik's betrayal of the public trust "repugnant," finished off with, "Teddy Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner in the 1890’s, was an embodiment of rectitude, a man who held himself to a higher standard than he expected of others. A century apart, Kerik and Teddy Roosevelt held the same job. But there the similarity ends."

We'll have a rundown of the indictment shortly. Until then, you can see it here.

"And I read some of the articles about this, about Dr. Kay's report today, in my opinion, there was one weapon of mass destruction in Iraq, and it was Saddam Hussein. ... I watched a video of Saddam sitting in an office and allowing two Doberman Pinschers to eat alive a general, a military general because he did not trust his loyalty. There was one weapon of mass destruction -- he's no longer in power. And I think that's what counts today."

-- Bernard Kerik, during the same press conference. CIA special envoy David Kay found there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The president's argument for war had something to do with WMD and not altogether much about dogs eating generals.

"I understand, probably more than anyone, what a threat Iraq was and the people that threatened Iraq was. I was beneath the towers on September 11th when they fell. And I -- again, I just -- I want to thank the President for the honor in allowing me to go there, because I lost 23 people. I wear this -- this memorial band for the 23 I lost."

-- Bernard Kerik, October 3, 2003, standing next to President Bush at the White House South Lawn. Iraq, it turns out, never had anything to do with 9/11.

How corrupt is Bernard Kerik? Let us count the ways.

As we indicated in today's Must Read, it's really hard to keep straight all of the scandals, mini-scandals, and sub-scandals that make up Bernie Kerik's general aura of muck.

Yesterday's indictment just scratches the surface. And that leaves us unsatisfied. So we'd like to compile a general catalogue of Kerik's malfeasance to bask in the full glow of his aura. Won't you help us?

Affairs, wrongful termination suits, improper gifts, shifty stock deals.... Help us out in the comments. And then later in the day, we'll post the results.

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.

A subdued Bernie Kerik, the man who's taught Rudy Giuliani the value of background checks, made an appearance on Fox News today.

After weighing in on the Iran hostage resolution and inveighing against Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, Kerik was finally asked about reports that he was the target of a federal investigation.

He responded by rattling off every award and citation he'd received in his long public service career, allowed that he'd "made mistakes" (to which he'd pled guilty), and cautioned that "the U.S. attorney may do an investigation, he does not have to push criminal charges."

Unfortunately for Kerik, while the U.S. attorney doesn't have to charge him, it seems very likely that Kerik will eventually be indicted.

Poor Rudy. All he did was choose one crooked guy to run New York City's police force (OK, OK, and then to run the Department of Homeland Security... well, and he also chose Kerik to be his business partner, but that's it), and people just won't let it go.

From The New York Times:

Buffeted once again by bad news about his disgraced former police commissioner [Bernard Kerik], Rudolph W. Giuliani said Saturday that he should have looked more closely into the commissioner’s background and acknowledged that it may cause voters to question his judgment....

“I think I should have done a better job of investigating him, vetting him, however you want to describe that,” Mr. Giuliani said in his first extended public comments on the latest revelations about Mr. Kerik. “It’s my responsibility, and I’ve learned from it,” he said, adding, “I’ll make sure that I do a much better job of checking into people in the future.”

That would ring hollow coming from anyone. But coming from a former U.S. attorney, it sounds profoundly dishonest.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that -- in addition to pleading guilty last year to accepting illegal gifts from a mobbed-up contractor -- Kerik is likely to be charged with several felonies (tax evasion, filing false information to the government, and conspiracy to commit wiretapping) by federal prosecutors. It's not clear if this federal investigation is the same one that was reported to focus on the hundreds of thousands of dollars that disappeared from a nonprofit affiliated with New York City's Department of Corrections when Kerik headed the agency. It's hard to keep track, you know.

Boy, it's been a rough year for Jeanine Pirro. First her fledging challenge to Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY) exploded after the worst campaign launch ever.

Now she's under federal investigation for plotting -- with onetime NYPD chief, former Iraq security head, would-be DHS secretary and crook Bernard Kerik -- to illegally spy on her own husband. (Come to think of it, it hasn't been a great year for Kerik, either). Oh, did I mention that their conversations were recorded?

Sources told NewsChannel 4 that in one conversation, Pirro allegedly complained that one of Kerik's employees is reluctant to board Albert Pirro's boat.

Jeanine Pirro suggests, "We can just simply say, if there is an issue, that I am redecorating it for our anniversary.” She complains that Kerik’s man is, “uncomfortable with that.”

Kerik responds by saying, “But Janine, I’m having the same f------g problem with everybody… everybody is panic stricken because it’s you… I’ve gone out on a limb… I had two other people looking at this… it’s a problem.”

Pirro says, “What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him f--k her every night? What am I supposed to do?… I can go on the boat, I’ll put the f-----g thing on myself.”

Minutes later, Kerik apparently calls a contact at Giuliani Partners, former mayor Rudy Giuliani’s consulting firm, asking him to find a recording device.

The conversations were recorded because Kerik’s phone was tapped in 2005, as part of an unrelated corruption probe. He ultimately pled guilty.

Woops! Bush's one-time pick for Homeland Security Secretary ("he has demonstrated a deep commitment to justice, a heart for the innocent, and a record of great success") is facing a second investigation.

Bernard Kerik, the former NYC Police Commissioner whose nomination to head DHS imploded in December 2004 over a spate of problems (an illegal-nanny scandal foremost among them), has already pled guilty to accepting illegal gifts from a mobbed-up contractor. He got away with no jail time -- though he did suffer the indignity of the Manhattan Bernard B. Kerik Complex quickly and quietly dropping his name from the jail.

This time, the FBI is looking into how hundreds of thousands of dollars disappeared from a nonprofit affiliated with New York City's Department of Corrections when Kerik headed the agency. Heckuva commitment to justice, Bernie!

Oops. Last week Bernard Kerik, Bush's onetime nominee for DHS chief, pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge. Instead of facing felony bribery charges, Kerik drew a Get Out of Jail for a $165,000 Fine card.

That saved Kerik from the fate of serving time in the city where he used to head up the Department of Corrections. And where, no kidding, there's a jail named after him.* Or was.

Apparently city officials didn't appreciate the irony of a jail being named after an admitted criminal. So on Sunday, they took his name down. Now the downtown complex, which everybody in New York knows as The Tombs (pictured below with Kerik in front), has been restored to its prior anonymity. It's the Manhattan Detention Complex once again.

*For those of you curious as to whether Kerik was ever actually in danger of serving time in the jail named after him -- the answer is no. Kerik was prosecuted in the Bronx, not Manhattan.

It's a busy plea week for former and would-be members of the Bush administration.

Bernard Kerik, Bush's one-time pick for DHS chief, has finally struck that rumored plea deal. $221,000 in fines is the slap on the wrist for accepting $165,000 in gifts from a mob-tied contractor.

Update: Here's Kerik's affidavit, admitting to the quid ($165,000 in apartment renovations from a contractor) and the quo (he, NYC's top cop, shilled for the company, talking it up and arranging meetings to help it get business with the city).

New York Times reporting:

Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, is close to reaching an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to having accepted improper gifts totaling tens of thousands of dollars while he was a city official in the late 1990's, two people with information on the plea negotiations said yesterday. . . .

Under the proposed agreement, Mr. Kerik would plead guilty to failing to report accepting roughly $200,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment — a violation of the city's administrative code. The work, officials have said, was paid for by a New Jersey construction company that the city had long accused of having ties to organized crime.

Mr. Kerik nearly rose. . . to the rank of cabinet secretary, when President Bush nominated him to head the Department of Homeland Security in December 2004. But he was forced to withdraw a week later, citing possible tax problems involving his family's nanny.

Too bad he never snagged the DHS gig. He would have been a great addition to this town! Think about Bernie Kerik testifying before Congress about Shirlington Limo. Or defending Katrina contracting scams. . . What scandal gestalt we could have had.