Few people have had a bigger fall from grace than former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was also once the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is considered to be the most plum job in the Justice Department outside of being appointed as U.S. Attorney General.
These days, Giuliani is doing Cameo videos just so he can pay his bills, and with reports that he’s no longer in Trump’s inner circle, Rudy is little more than a pathetic old man who allegedly drinks way too much and humiliates himself whenever he opens his mouth to speak.
In other words, as Peter Stone writes in New York magazine, Giuliani is a shell of the man he once was:
Giuliani is being treated, by all appearances, as a dead man walking. America’s Mayor, as he was once known, has been abandoned by his most powerful friend. He has lost his megaphone at Fox News and is now going around with a begging bowl for money. And at the center of Giuliani’s legal troubles is a web of overlapping federal investigations, including a criminal probe focusing on him personally, which some experts say could force him to yield to prosecutors in a case that may implicate the former president.
Stone decided to speak with some well-known legal experts, among them former Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Bromwich, who told him:
“Giuliani is facing a set of challenges unlike anything he’s dealt with before. The extremely serious criminal investigation that could send him to jail, the civil suits that could bankrupt him, the disbarment proceedings that may well end any opportunity to practice law ever again — it’s a tidal wave of problems with potentially devastating personal and professional consequences.
“It’s hard to think of any analogous case where a person who once rode so high — as a prosecutor, a New York mayor, a serious presidential candidate, and an international figure — has been brought so low in so many ways and where the damage has been entirely self-inflicted.”
Paul Pelletier, the former acting chief of the Justice Department’s fraud section, concurred with Bromwich:
“The emotional and financial pressure of a single long-term federal white-collar investigation can take a crippling toll on any target of such an investigation. Enduring multiple investigations, in addition to bar disciplinary actions and financial pressures, creates an enormous incentive to alleviate that pressure in some way. The only logical ways I know of are to plead guilty, cooperate, or both.”
Pelletier said Rudy’s sad state of affairs does afford him opportunity, and he predicted what may happen next:
“If past is prologue, the search warrants conducted on the phones and electronic devices of Giuliani and his associates should soon begin bearing a cornucopia of fruit. That type of electronic evidence typically reveals compelling evidence of the criminal scheme outlined in the search-warrant affidavit. If and when that happens, the walls should close in pretty quickly on Mr. Giuliani and any identified criminal cohorts.”
In other words, Giuliani will have only one option remaining: To flip on his “criminal cohorts,” including Donald Trump. If he doesn’t, he’s looking at spending the remainder of his life in prison.
Rudy is facing a decision. He can either make the right choice or give up his freedom for a man who would toss him under the bus in a New York second if the roles were reversed.
Tick tock, Rudy.
