Ritzy Rudy
Over at TNR's The Stump blog 
I see my pal Michael Crowley has dug up this June 2006 issue of "Hampton Style" magazine with Rudy and Judi on the cover. The article is on Judi "First Lady of the Hamptons".
Perhaps someone can help me though. All I can find is this lame low-res image of the cover. Now, I know TPM has a few readers in the Hamptons set. And someone must have an original of this issue. Like I said, I think it's June 2006. If you've got it, could you drop me a line? A scan would be great. But if you have it, just shoot me an email.
We'll do lunch. My people will talk to your people ...
--Josh Marshall
Hevesi?
A number of you have written in why the Judi car on the city dime isn't landing Rudy in the same kind of trouble that ended state comptroller Alan Hevesi's career. We addressed this a couple days ago. The law in question appears to apply only to state officeholders. More details here.
--Josh Marshall
Now's When It Gets Interesting
The new Des Moines Register poll has Mike Huckabee in the lead in Iowa by a 5 point margin.
Huckabee 29%
Romney 24%
Giuliani 13%
Thompson 9%
McCain 7%
Paul 7%
Tancredo 6%
On the Dem side, Obama's in front but by a slightly smaller margin ...
Obama 28%
Clinton 25%
Edwards 23%
Richardson 9%
Biden 6%
Remember too that there's a significant wildcard factor in the caucus system. It's not a straight one person one vote. People meet at their caucus locations and candidates with less than I believe 15% of caucus-goers at that caucus have to either switch to another candidate or into an uncommitted group. The key point is that who peoples' second choice may be can have a powerful effect on the outcome -- one not necessarily revealed just by looking at a conventional poll.
In this case, the top two Republicans and the top three Dems each appear well over 15% support. But remember, that's statewide. In individual caucuses you're going to have a lot variation. Especially on the Democratic side, the second choice could be key.
--Josh Marshall
The fine art of planted questions
If a Democrat asks a question at a debate for Republican presidential candidates, far-right activists reflexively (and incoherently) define this as a "planted" question.
But to really appreciate what a "plant" looks like, you'll have to turn to the Bush administration.
For example, once the Bush gang's initial rationale for the war in Iraq was exposed as a fraud, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice launched a public-relations campaign to shield herself from the fiasco (Rice frequently went on national television to tout the notion that we can't wait to be sure Iraq is a threat, because we "don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud").
According to the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, Rice's strategy included ordering an aide to "plant a question" about her possible presidential ambitions.
She had a very deliberative public relations strategy when she became Secretary of State to help erase the images of how ineffective she had been as National Security Adviser. And I describe how one of her aides even planted a question with a friendly journalist to ask whether she would be interested in running for president -- to give her the aura of someone who might have presidential aspirations, make her seem more powerful than she was.
And that all helped negate American memories over her very direct role in the invasion of Iraq.
Now that's a planted question.
--Steve Benen
Bush to slash counter-terrorism funds
The White House has struggled for quite a while when it comes to disbursing federal funds to municipalities for counter-terrorism. In 2006, for example, the Bush administration, slashed money for Washington, D.C., and New York City using a bizarre grant process that no one could explain. At the same time, the administration released a risk scorecard for NYC that concluded that the home of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and Brooklyn Bridge has "zero" national monuments or icons.
Yesterday, however, the Bush gang decided the entire grant process is no longer worth the investment, and it would now slash counter-terrorism funds even more.
The Bush administration intends to slash counterterrorism funding for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year, according to budget documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The Homeland Security Department has given $23 billion to states and local communities to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the administration is not convinced that the money has been well spent and thinks the nation's highest-risk cities have largely satisfied their security needs.
The department wanted to provide $3.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks in 2009, but the White House said it would ask Congress for less than half -- $1.4 billion, according to a Nov. 26 document.
The plan calls outright elimination of programs for port security, transit security, and local emergency management operations in the next budget year. This is President Bush's last budget, and the new administration would have to live with the funding decisions between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, 2009.
I'm trying to imagine the Republican response if a Democratic presidential candidate proposed a budget policy similar to Bush's plan. I have a strong hunch we'd hear words like "traitor" and "treason" thrown around quite a bit.
How bad is it? Even Joe Lieberman thinks Bush is off-track.
In a joint statement, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairman and ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said they "urge the administration to reconsider this wrong-headed strategy."
Stay tuned.
--Steve Benen
Signing statements make a comeback
Throughout his first six years in office, Bush had a habit of signing congressional legislation into law, but using "signing statements" to explain which parts of the law he didn't feel like following.
Fortunately, the president curtailed the practice this year, sticking with the more traditional sign-or-veto approach embraced by his predecessors. That is, until recently. The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage, whose award-winning coverage of the issue has been a journalistic highlight of the last seven years, has the story.
President Bush this month issued his first signing statement since the Democratic takeover of Congress, reserving the right to bypass 11 provisions in a military appropriations bill under his executive powers.
In the statement, which the White House filed in the Federal Register on Nov. 13 but which initially attracted little attention, Bush challenged several requirements to provide information to Congress.
For example, one law Bush targeted requires him to give oversight committees notice before transferring US military equipment to United Nations peacekeepers.
Bush also challenged a new law that limits his ability to transfer funds lawmakers approved for one purpose to start a different program, as well as a law requiring him to keep in place an existing command structure for the Navy's Pacific fleet.
Bush thought enough of the bill to sign it into law, but not quite enough of it to obey all of the bill's provisions. He's picky that way.
--Steve Benen
Worst. Week. Ever.
It's inevitable that presidential candidates will experience a certain ebb and flow as the process unfolds, but can we all agree that Rudy Giuliani has seen the worst week of any candidate in recent memory?
On Monday, Bloomberg News reported that Giuliani, despite railing against congressional earmarks on the campaign stump, and pledging to "get rid of" lawmakers' pet projects if elected, actually "sought federal earmarks for 14 companies this year, 11 of which hired [Bracewell & Giuliani] after Giuliani joined in March 2005." Republican consultant Eddie Mahe responded, "It's a bit hypocritical."
On Tuesday, Giuliani attended a campaign fundraiser hosted by a "man convicted in a notorious corruption case." An embarrassed Giuliani "came and went from last night's fundraiser without comment, ducking down in his car as ABC News cameras attempted to photograph him arriving."
On Wednesday morning, a new batch of polls show Giuliani's support fading in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Shag Fund scandal broke.
On Thursday, while the Shag Fund scandal gathers steam, we learn that Giuliani's private security firm provided security consulting and advice in Qatar through contracts overseen by Sheik Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani, who is suspected of close ties to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Osama bin Laden.
On Friday, the New York Times' Michael Cooper reported that Giuliani cites a series of statistics in his stump speech, most of which "are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong."
On Saturday, the Washington Post's conservative editorial board noted that Giuliani's new TV ad is patently ridiculous, premised on tax policy assumptions that even the Bush White House rejects as foolish.
All the while, Giuliani and his aides try one defense after another for the Shag Fund scandal, none of which makes any sense.
Don't worry, Rudy, there's always next week.
--Steve Benen
Shag Fund consequences?
The scandal is still fairly new, so it may be a little early to see how the Shag Fund scandal will affect Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers, but Republicans are apparently aware of it. Campaigning in South Carolina yesterday, Giuliani was spared humiliating questions, but there was "grumbling" among voters.
None in the crowd asked him about the billing disclosures during the event, although some grumbled about it beforehand.
"I don't think that's proper," said Paul Schaefer, 79, who is trying to decide between Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain. In a close call, the security detail flap could make up his mind, he said.
Time will tell if Mr. Schaefer is representative of a larger GOP trend, but I'd just add that Giuliani's standing in the future's markets took a sharp and sudden drop on Wednesday afternoon. It's probably not a coincidence.
--Steve Benen
Rove against the world
Last week, in one of his more breathtaking lies, Karl Rove told a national television audience that it was Congress, not the Bush White House, that pushed for an Iraq war resolution in advance of the 2002 midterm elections. Rove said the administration was "opposed" to moving "too fast," and that the president and his aides wanted the debate "outside the confines of the election."
Since then, there's been one thing everyone, on both sides of the aisle, can agree on: Rove is lying. Then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Rove either has "a very faulty memory, or he's not telling the truth," a sentiment echoed by then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt's office.
Rove's former colleagues are just as blunt. Former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card not only said Rove is wrong, but added, "[S]ometimes his mouth gets ahead of his brain." Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer concluded, "I think Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong." Former Bush counselor Dan Bartlett added, "This is the first time I've ever heard Karl say that."
Confronted with this reality, Karl Rove did what we'd expect him to do: he repeated the lie as if reality had no meaning.
Rove repeated his assertion in an interview yesterday, pointing to comments made by Democrats in 2002 that they wanted a vote. "For Democrats to suggest they didn't want to vote on it before the election is disingenuous," he said.
Rove could have very easily explained that he misspoke during his interview last week, or misunderstood the question. But not this guy -- he lied, got caught, was thrown under the bus by his former colleagues, and then went back and repeated the lie all over again.
For what it's worth, the Washington Post did a report on this, but was reluctant to use the "f" word ("false), or the "l" word ("lie"). Greg Sargent explains.
--Steve Benen
Shag By Proxy
Apparently the two police detectives and undercover police vehicle put at Judi Nathan's disposal for travel around the city when she was still Rudy's mistress were routinely forced to ferry Nathan's friends and family around the city as well.
--Josh Marshall
Do Take That Call!
Okay, point of publisher's privilege. Please indulge me.
One of our favorite stories of 2007 was Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-AK) sweetheart, half-price vacation house deal from Alaska sportsfishing mogul Bob Penney. It was some great shoe-leather investigative reporting by TPMmuckraker.com alum Laura McGann.
Well, this week Murkowski sat down with the editorial board of the Alaska Daily News and among other things they asked her what she'd learned from the land deal experience.
Her answer?
Shouldn't have blown off that call from TPMmuckraker.com. As the ADN editors described it ...
She gave a lame answer about what lessons she learned from the controversy over her now-canceled purchase of a Kenai River waterfront lot from Bob Penney, a wealthy sportfish activist and campaign contributor who is also a family friend. She suggested her biggest mistake was blowing off the first media inquiry about it, because it came from an unfamiliar web organization with "muckraker" in the title.
If you click this link they actually have audio of her answer, which is a good deal funnier than the description.
For what it's worth, Murkowski pretty clearly turns out to be the honest and ethical member of the Alaska congressional delegation. But it's not too high a bar since the other two members of the delegation, Sen. Stevens (R) and Rep. Young (R), are both under criminal investigation for various corruption.
For a fun trip down memory lane ...
--Josh Marshall
Shag Fund -- It's on Us!
Yesterday, every reporter who wanted a copy, was allowed to go down to City Hall and pick up copies of the city financial records that were the basis of the original Shag Fund report in the Politico.com. That's how we found out about the weird $400,000 prepayment to American Express, which appears to have been yet another method of taking city money and running it through enough buckets that it could be used for pretty much anything Rudy and his crew wanted to use it for. Some stuff legit, other stuff pretty questionable. The Daily News asked top Giuliani advisor Anthony Carbonetti about the prepayment and were told that, "it's fiscally responsible to anticipate predictable expenses and prepay them."
In other words, I guess fiscal responsibility can mean a lot of things.
In any case, this was a pretty thick stack of paper. Our muck crew actually spent pretty much the whole trying to make sense of it. (We actually broke in a new intern yesterday working exclusive on the Shag Fund accounting project, who did a great job.) We focused on the accounting methods while the city dailies focused more on what was actually paid for. So, from looking at their articles this morning, we can get yet a fuller picture.
The Shag Fund not only paid for the 11 tryst visits to Hamptons.
-- It paid for hotel and other expenses for mayoral aides -- in addition to the security detail -- who also went with the mayor to the Hamptons on the tryst weekends.
-- Nathan's NYPD-chauffeured trips (without Rudy) to visit her parents in Pennsylvania, 130 miles outside the city.
-- NYPD detectives and city-owned undercover Dodge to drive Nathan around the city.
-- NYPD detectives and city-owned undercover Dodge to drive Nathan's friends and family around the city even when she wasn't in the car.
-- NYPD security detail for Nathan, personally approved by Bernard Kerik.
-- NYPD cops to walk Nathan's dog.
--Josh Marshall
Might Help Get Shag Fund Off the Front Page?
Turns out Rudy's security firm has done extensive work for a Qatari government official suspected of harboring the guy who planned 9/11.
--Josh Marshall
That Your Final Answer?
Hmmm. Ray Kelly, who was Police Commissioner right before and right after the Rudy era, says he never heard about any of the reimbursement delays that Team Rudy has been using to explain the squirrelly accounting procedures.
--Josh Marshall
Breaking: Hostages Held At Clinton Campaign Office
Reports out of New Hampshire indicate an armed man has taken hostages at a Clinton campaign office in Rochester.
Clinton herself was not present.
Man reportedly has bomb strapped to himself, according to a hostage who was released with her baby.
Sen. Clinton has canceled her scheduled appearance at the DNC meeting in Virginia.
Late Update: Reports remain conflicting about how many hostages have been released thus far but it appears to be that a total of three, plus a baby, have been released.
More soon.
--David Kurtz
Journalism, What a Concept
As you can see we're wall to wall, double-ply Shag today. But don't miss this piece by Glenn Greenwald comparing the Times excellent analysis of Rudy's phony stats with the Post's Muslim Obama hack job.
--Josh Marshall
Rudy Not Taking Questions
Spinning Shag Fund ain't working, so the Rudy camp is going into press lockdown mode:
Giuliani, who is normally friendly to reporters, bristled past them, and campaign staffers were unusually physical in keeping the press away. Several campaign aides told campaign reporters to return to the press area, and some of his security detail manhandled reporters.
--David Kurtz
Simple Accounting Matter?
If the funds diversions at the center of the Shag Fund story was just an innocent accounting issue, why did Team Rudy start stonewalling city investigators on it as far back as 2001 when Rudy was still mayor?
--Josh Marshall
Muck-O-Rama Contest Update! Judges Revealed!
A week ago we brought you word of our end of the year Muck-O-Rama contest. Now you've given us your category suggestions and we're ready to announce those and move on to the next stage of the contest where you, the vast TPM readership, can submit nominations for excellence in muck, scandal and corruption and compete for your own prizes (quality TPM swag) for best nominations.
We'll be announcing the categories and rules later today.
But for now we wanted to let you know about the great panel of distinguished judges we've assembled who will sit in judgment on the year in muck that was 2007.
In choosing them, we were careful not only to pick potential muck jurists with the requisite wit, discernment and analytic heft to properly judge the muck. But we also wanted to assemble a panel with a diverse range of expertise suited to that range of muck (legal, literary, psycho-sexual, political, purely ridiculous) that came down the pike in 2007.
So without further ado, our panel is ...
Susie Bright, author, sexologist, analyst of erotic endeavors
John Dean, former Nixon White House Counsel, author, critic, columnist, muckster-turned-muckraker
Hendrik Hertzberg, essayist, political reporter, general TPM hero
Matthew Yglesias, blogger, representative of the rising generation, advocate of the typo-challenged
Dahlia Lithwick, law and legal affairs writer
We will be bringing you more exciting updates shortly. So get your nomination pens ready.
--Josh Marshall
The Irony of Shag
There's an irony emerging in the Shag Fund story. As is often the case, it's an irony Rudy isn't in a position to make much use of. But I think it's important to flesh it out.
Rudy's defense in all this has been that there's nothing wrong here because this Enron accounting he was using in the mayor's office wasn't specifically to conceal the Shag Fund. And we're getting the sense that he's right. At least in part.
It seems more likely in his final years and months as mayor Rudy was living larger and larger on the NYC dime. And a look at the book-keeping details that are emerging suggests a very conscious effort to use these squirrelly accounting techniques to hide Rudy's high-living ways from public scrutiny. Some of it was Shag Fund spending, but not all, probably not even most.
The problem is that even though the accounting techniques were part of a general effort to hide Rudy's living the high-life on the city's dime, it's now shined a bright light on the Shag Fund. And the Shag Fund was evidently spread more widely than the stuff accounted for with the squirrelly book-keeping.
Who paid for the city car and driver given to Judi while she was still Rudy's mistress?
Who paid for her security detail?
Why did she have one?
Does the city have to pay for travel and expenses for Rudy's wife and his mistress? Can't the budgeting be monogamous even if Rudy's not?
The point is that the effort to hide Rudy's mounting travel and high life expenses really does appear to have been a general practice, one not restricted to hiding the Shag Fund -- a point that Rudy's flacks are now trying to make, but one, as you can imagine, that isn't possible to make in a really straightforward way.
--Josh Marshall
Help Me Before I Bamboozle Again!
The New York Times comes through big time with an epic fact-check of Rudy's chronic bamboozling.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
So far, the "no explanation" explanation seems to be the best spin the Giuliani camp has for the Shag Fund.
--David Kurtz
Wall to Wall Shag
It's a key part of how we work every day. But sometimes I like to point it out explicitly and ask for your help. We're going to reporting all day today on the Shag Fund. But we really rely on you to let us know when new reports surface with key new details, in newspapers and websites large and small. We need your eyes to help us find the latest details. So when you see a new story break today, shoot us an email. Let us know.
--Josh Marshall
For New York's Finest
Earlier this evening we noted that the new line from the Giuliani camp is that the Shag Fund's convoluted financing was put in place to help the cops on Rudy's security detail. Giuliani spinmeister Joe Lohta told the AP that "was necessary because the police officers did not make a lot of money and their department took up to two months to repay them for their travel expenses. So Giuliani's office got a credit card and paid it off with funds from the various agencies."
Lohta gave a little more detail to Newsday. Lohta told the paper "the practice started when officers on his security detail complained that the police department was slow to reimburse them for rental cars and lodging."
Not to state the obvious again, but this doesn't tell us anything about why the expenses were squirreled away in the budgets of obscure city offices. It's non-responsive. But is it even true? I've basically got two-to-three reporters on this story. And I'm a pretty rough boss so I've got them working a bunch of other stuff too. But someone needs to find out who the cops were and just ask them: is that true? Is that how it happened?
So why were they squirreled away? The Times quotes Lhota as saying, "I’ve continued to try to find out." But he's not just some flack brought in to figure out the story. For part of Rudy's term he was the city budget director. It's a big city and there's a lot more to do than manage the Shag Fund. But he's still trying to find out?
--Josh Marshall
Honorable Mention for Shag Snark
Michael Granof, University of Texas government accounting expert: "On the face of it, I can't see any reason why the mayor's travel expenses should be allocated to the Loft Board, unless he is traveling to examine lofts in other cities."
--Josh Marshall
Shagonomics
Ed Koch's Budget Director Alaire Townsend on Shag Fund budgeting ...
"Money might get moved around within the mayor's office, but I don't know why an expense of the NYPD would get recorded that way unless you just didn't want people to find it."
--Josh Marshall
Message Advice for Rudy
I'm still trying to make sure I fully understand the New York Times article referenced below. But I think it's clear that Rudy's best defense at this point is that he didn't just use these accounting shenanigans to conceal the Shag Fund but also to conceal trips by his wife and purely political trips to Upstate New York.
But I guess that doesn't role off the tongue that easily.
--Josh Marshall
Light Amidst the Shag
The Times has an interesting piece on the Shag Fund.
One key point is that it wasn't just shagging expenses that got shifted to all these obscure NYC offices. From what I can tell, there was actually some legitimate travel: some political trips to upstate when Rudy was thinking he was going to run for senate and security for the second wife Donna Hanover when she traveled out of town.
I fear, though, that we are only rubbing the surface of the true Shag Fund in this incipient probe. Clearly there's the travel money -- billed to whatever NYC office -- used for trips and security for Rudy out at the Hamptons shags. But we also know now that while Rudy was conducting an extramarital affair with Judi he gave her her own NYPD car and driver to be squired around the city with. Where'd the money for that come from? He later assigned her her own security detail, though this did apparently come after he fired Donna Hanover as First Lady of NYC so he apparently yanked some of them from her and gave them to Judi. Where'd the money for that come from?
According to City Comptroller Bill Thompson, auditors from the Comptroller's office first started raising questions about Rudy's travel costs during his predecessor's tenure. Rudy folks basically told them to go jump in a lake. Then after Bloomberg came in they asked again. Bloomberg's office reviewed the matter, decided the payments were for legitimate security functions and then referred it on to the city Department of Investigation. From there ...
“We were told it that it was for security purposes, that it was used for legitimate security reasons,” Mr. Thompson said. “And once you get that assurance, particularly from not the same mayor’s office, but from a different mayor’s office, that they had taken a look, then we had no reason to believe that it wasn’t.”“Our biggest concern,” he continued, “was making sure there was no misappropriation.” Mr. Thompson said he had not heard anything further about the matter from the Department of Investigation, but said normal procedures would call for the agency to contact him only if it found something improper.
A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment about the matter and would not say whether it had produced a closing memorandum, a standard practice in any investigation, saying it was “gathering the files related to the investigation.”
Yes, misappropriation of funds. Like setting your mistress up with a city car and police chauffeur? This, of course, wasn't part of the investigation. Or was there even one?
--Josh Marshall
Now That's a Character Witness!
Bernie Kerik vouches for Rudy on the Shag Fund (from the Times) ...
Bernard B. Kerik, who was Mr. Giuliani’s police commissioner when some of the charges were billed, said in an interview yesterday that the security detail’s travel expenses would normally come out of the Police Department’s budget.“There would be no need for anyone to conceal his detail’s travel expenses,” said Mr. Kerik, who was indicted earlier this month on unrelated federal tax fraud and corruption charges. “And I think It’s ridiculous for anyone to suggest that the mayor or his staff attempted to do so.”
Well that settles that, right?
When Bernie's vouching for Rudy and not vice versa you know someone's slippin' fast.
--Josh Marshall
Dream Candidate
Pretty impressive. On pollster.com's poll of pollsters, you've got Fred Thompson pulling down a tidy 2.8% in New Hampshire. Guy's on fire.
--Josh Marshall
The Right Question
Just out from Ben Smith at The Politico:
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his senior aides Thursday blamed anonymous bookkeepers for his administration's practice of billing the travel expenses for his personal security detail to obscure city agencies.But a top aide was unable to say why Giuliani’s administration and his successor's rebuffed questions from the city's top fiscal watchdog in 2001 and 2002. City Comptroller William Thompson said Thursday his auditors were “stonewalled” by the Giuliani administration when they inquired about the unusual billing procedures, which he called "disturbing."
Instead, Giuliani and his aides focused their attention on the issue of whether the unlikely divisions of the mayor's office had been reimbursed — not why the expenses were billed to out-of-the-way agencies such as the New York City Loft Board in the first place.
That is the key question: Why did the expenses of Rudy's security get billed out to obscure agencies within the mayor's office in the first place?
There's no question that public funds were used to pay for Rudy's security detail while he was out on Long Island rendezvousing with Judith Nathan. One way or the other, it was either paid by the mayor's office or by the NYPD. No one disputes that, not even Rudy. No one cares which pocket the public funds came out of. What everyone cares about--and what The Politico's reporting so far seems to suggest--is that the expenses were scattered among various agencies so as to obscure Rudy's illicit activities and the expenses associated with them.
That's the question. But Rudy's campaign won't answer it and Rudy himself is not getting asked it by the likes of Anderson Cooper or Katie Couric. So he skates for another day.
--David Kurtz
That's $%#@&% Up
Okay, I apologize for this non-Shag Fund post. But this is pretty extraordinary. I'm on Facebook. And I haven't noticed this. Maybe because I don't buy enough stuff online. But according to this article in the Times, they've got it set up now where your "friends" are notified about what you buy online -- presumably by some modern equivalent of cookies. So you get pinged "Josh bought 'Jack's Big Music Show DVD" from Blahblah.com!
And you can't disable the function apparently. [ed.note: Usually I get tips and corrections from readers. In this case it came from my wife. Apparently you can opt out. But not in general. You have to opt out on every single purchase. A box comes up when you buy something and asks "Would you like to tell your friends on Facebook about your purchase of this Large Vibrating Egg (TM)?' So I think my disgruntlement still applies.]
Doing what I do I live my life with a certain amount of transparency. But I think I might actually close my account just based on the intrusiveness of it. Am I just an old fuddy-duddy?
And as long as we're on the topic, if you're a parent of a young child like I am, what's your favorite tv show for them. I was pretty partial to my childhood favorite Sesame Street. But I think I've now got to give the prize to Jack's Big Music Show.
Any kindred spirits out there?
Late Update: Seems Facebook has now given in.
--Josh Marshall
NYC Comptroller: Nice Try, Rudy
ABC's got a further run-down on the latest on the Shag Fund.
One nice detail. They had a conversation with NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, the first guy to stumble across Rudy's book keeping shenanigans. In response to Rudy's claims that the whole thing was business as usual -- "handled openly, honestly" -- Thompson told ABC: "That's not the way that we operate these days, and it would not be the preferred way of doing business. In the end, it's a very convoluted way of getting things done. If anyone hoped that no one would notice, they were being foolish."
--Josh Marshall
BREAKING: Rudy's New Shag Fund Explanation!
Seems he was doing it for the men in blue. From the AP ...
On Thursday, Joe Lohta, who was deputy mayor and budget director under Giuliani, said the billing practice was necessary because the police officers did not make a lot of money and their department took up to two months to repay them for their travel expenses. So Giuliani's office got a credit card and paid it off with funds from the various agencies. At the end of each fiscal year, the New York Police Department repaid the divisions.
We're a little unclear on this, though. The first hints of this story came when the city comptroller found that Rudy's administration had hidden money for "non-local travel" in the budget's of various obscure city agencies. It's not clear from the letter from the comptroller that these monies were ever reimbursed. Indeed, the whole point of the letter seems premised on the assumption that they weren't.
That said, the whole issue of subsequent reimbursement is basically a red-herring since the issue is why these they put them in these out of the way accounts in the first place. Presumably a subsequent reimbursement to the NYPD would have some effect of hiding the nature of the original expenditure.
And this explanation also seems bogus for another reason -- one which, as we'll see, should give us some further sense of how a Giuliani White House might operate. The City Comptroller started finding these irregularities in 2002 after Rudy left office. When the comptroller's office asked Rudy's people for an explanation, they refused to discuss it citing "security" reasons.
Now, I think we've all gotten used to the fact that the current crew at the White House uses various security-based excuses to refuse to answer questions about all sorts of things. But he's actually the president. And while I think they've terribly abused this dodge to create a climate of extreme secrecy and non-trasnsparency, at the end of the day there actually are legitimate security issues tied to the president -- both to the protection of his person and a decent amount of what he does on the job.
But the mayor? Please. At the end of the day, the Mayor of New York City is a mayor. Not James Bond or the Secretary of Defense. The idea that there are security reasons why he can't explain to the city budget watch dog how he allocated money for his security detail is a joke.
And it is an instructive joke in this case. Because if this is all it's about, helping out the guy's on the security detail, why'd they refuse to say so back in 2002?
Face it: these clowns are blowing smoke like a three-alarm fire. They'll do anything not to get this looked at.
Late Update: From this late report from Jake Tapper at ABC News, it now appears that Mayor Bloomberg's office is saying that it "believes" (and there seems to be a heavy on that word "believes" in the statement) the fees were eventually reimbursed. As I said above, though, it's basically a distraction. The issue was why they were paying these bills out of these obscure accounts in the first place. Reimbursement or not, it still has the effect of hiding what Rudy was doing.
--Josh Marshall
Guilty Like Hevesi?
A number of blogs, including TalkLeft and McJoan at DailyKos have noted that what Rudy Giuliani did -- giving then-mistress Judi Nathan a city car and driver -- looks a lot like, actually worse, than what ended former NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi's career and forced him to plead guilty to misappropriating state funds. Hevesi had a taxpayer car and driver at the disposal of his sick wife.
Well, there's no doubt Rudy would be tried and convicted in the court of history, posterity, generally shameless behavior and various other metaphorical jurisdictions.
Indeed, having state employees chauffeur your sick wife seems considerably more justifiable than having a car and driver detailed for your mistress.
But we've been looking into this and from what we can see Rudy probably skates.
Again, this is preliminary and we're in touch with experts on New York law. But the law that snagged Hevesi applies to state officials, not all public officials in the state of New York. So even though Rudy did something considerably more egregious we're pretty sure the law simply doesn't apply to him as a city elected official (probably a case where the diminutive nature of his office is something he's thankful for).
We're looking to see if there's a parallel law that applies in New York City. But so far we haven't found it.
Don't worry, we'll keep looking ...
--Josh Marshall
The Internet is Great!
George Allen, former U.S. senator and noted "new media" expert:
--David Kurtz
Hard-Hitting Journalism! (The Shag That Didn't Bark)
Earlier today we heard that Rudy was going to appear on Jim Cramer's show to address the Shag Fund questions. From ABC ...
Giuliani is expected to appear on CNBC at 6 p.m. today to answer questions about the accounting procedures.
Interview has just ended. Not a single question about the Shag Fund. Issue of the day apparently is tariff policy.
--Josh Marshall
Washington Post reporter responds to all the criticism of his front-page piece on Obama Muslim "rumors."
--David Kurtz
Whack-job GOP congressman (Hoekstra) was Joe Klein's source for error-filled column.
Heckuva job ...
Late Update: Remember, Hoekstra was the guy claiming that there were elements in the CIA in league with al Qaeda.
--Josh Marshall
Va-Vooooom
We knew that Rudy eventually had Judi Nathan assigned her own NYC police security detail. Now it seems that while their affair was still a secret and while Rudy was still married, he set his mistress up with her own personal driver and NYC-taxpayer funded car to get around town.
Hints at a question a few readers have posed -- do we really know all those hidden away bills were for Rudy and not Judi?
--Josh Marshall
Dana Perino tap dances through the naval standoff with China . . . Musharraf . . . Iraq War funding . . . and executive privilege claims in the USAs probe, all in today's White House press briefing:
--David Kurtz
Rudy: Dems Made Me Shag
Rudy says Dems may be behind the Shag Fund story.
Along those lines, Rudy's just gone on the air with a new ad flagging his fiscal responsibility and work to make "government more accountable."
$3,000 in security costs per shag? Sounds like a big spender ...
--Josh Marshall
Map o' Shag
As I noted earlier, Rudy isn't denying that he had the city pay for his trips out to the Hamptons to weekend with his then-mistress Judi Nathan, along with picking up the tab for his security detail. That point actually isn't even news. It was reported at the time in the NY Post and more recently in Vanity Fair.
The key is whether he hid the costs he was billing the city, putting them off as costs for people with disabilities (not sure if Rudy wants to go there in this case) or indigent defense.
But why didn't they just have their trysts in the city.
Well, you must not have been paying close enough attention. Before 9/11, the city of New York set up an emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex, actually in building 7. After 9/11 this was a matter of some controversy since it obviously wasn't usable on the day of the attacks. (Building 7 eventually collapsed late in the day on 9/11.) And while no one could have predicted 9/11 precisely, there was a certain gap in logic in building the command center in what had already proven to be a top terrorist target.
However that might be, earlier this year it emerged that Rudy actually spent a lot of time in his personal quarters in the command center pre-9/11 because that's where he took Judi for their snogfests while their relationship was still a secret.
In fact, it gets better. While it's difficult to prove, there was a decent amount of circumstantial evidence -- and some city officials believed -- that Rudy's reason for wanting the center in building 7 was so that he could walk there easily from city hall for his trysts with Judy.
So just how do we judge the price NYC paid for the Judi affair?
--Josh Marshall
Itemize
TPM Reader VW passes on this link to the earlier Vanity Fair article on the Rudy/Judi affairs that estimated the trysts cost the city about $3000 a pop. But it seems like that was just for the security detail, not the transportation, frills or special prizes.
--Josh Marshall
Perino: White House "doesn't seek" permanent bases in Iraq. But if they insist, what are we going to say?
--Josh Marshall
Okay, Can't Say Newsday Buried It
Special thanks to TPM Reader PS flagging it.
--Josh Marshall
How-To
Here at TPM we're drilling into the Shag Fund story, as homage to Rudy, you might say. But a lot of what we do here is a collaborative effort. So I wanted to map out some of where we think the road map is for further reporting.
If you look at Rudy's response in the video clip immediately below, he basically concedes he was visiting his then-mistress Nathan. He says that if the money for his trysts were secreted away in funds for the disabled or indigent defense, that was something the police did, not him.
Well, let's ask the police. Two ways to approach this. You can ask the NYPD today -- is it true that the NYPD did this on its own initiative? Did that violate any rules? Why did they do it? Had the police detectives who decided to charge Rudy's tryst visits to the fund for the disabled discussed with Rudy the need for discretion and secrecy?
You can also ask the folks there at the time. Same questions for them.
I find it hard to believe the police would come up with and pull these accounting shenanigans all on their own. But that's Rudy's story.
And what about this claim from a Rudy aide ...
Later, an aide said that for accounting purposes, the expenses appear to have been temporarily allocated to city offices and paid for out of the mayor's budget but that the police department ultimately picked up the tab and reimbursed the mayor's office at the end of each year.
Is that true? It should be possible to clear that up pretty easily. Was it all reimbursed? Or did the workaround-with-reimbursement have the effect concealing what the money was used for while still making the various disability and indigent defense funds whole?
Just a matter of asking the questions.
--Josh Marshall
No Love for Shag
So far seems the NY Daily News is the only paper to give any major attention to the Shag Fund story, despite the evidence holes in Rudy's denial. And for what it's worth, the author of the piece, Ben Smith, used to be at the NYDN.
(ed.note: The Times also reports on the story, though deep, deep in the A section.)
(Of course, one must take into account that since Drudge did not approve it as a major story -- it was flagged as "Rudy Hit With Expense Report" -- they likely don't feel able to cover it aggressively.)
Here's Rudy's denial if you haven't seen it ...
Late Update: CBS actually hits the story too. And significantly they're one of the flew outlets that explicitly hits the non-responsive nature of the Camp Rudy's response ...
Giuliani's campaign had this response, calling the story a non-issue."This is common practice," the campaign said in a statement. "The NYPD is responsible for providing security for the mayor of New York around the clock."
"It’s clearly the responsibility of the NYPD to provide the mayor’s security around the clock and that’s what they did,” Giuliani spokesperson Maria Comella told CBS News.
But the question isn't about his security detail. It's about how the expenses were billed.
--Josh Marshall
TPMtv: When Republicans Attack!
Missed last night's GOP YouTube debate? We've got all the ugly highlights -- just be sure you're wearing a bib and a bulletproof vest ...
We've got more debate highlights over at TPM Election Central.
--Ben Craw
Today's Must Read
Trent Lott's nephew and brother-in-law, hot-shot trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs, are indicted for allegedly trying to bribe a state judge in a multimillion dollar dispute over attorney fees.
--David Kurtz
Project of the Day
Tell us where your favorite news site, newspaper, etc. has the Rudy Shag Fund story today. All I'm hearing is crickets so far. You see it anywhere? Let us know.
--Josh Marshall