In February of last year, the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, hired Rudy Giuliani as a consultant for national security services. Today, the former New York City mayor is being sued for more than $1.3 billion by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims of election fraud.
The Federal District Court accuses Giuliani of a disinformation campaign that spun a fictitious narrative on voting machine manufacturers. Giuliani’s law and order rhetoric wasn’t enough to prevent a lawsuit that, according to the New York Times, was also linked to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Giuliani told voters that he is responsible for the decline of the New York City crime rate. Although violent crime in New York City indeed dropped by 56% during his time as mayor, crime was already reducing steadily three years before he became mayor. Studies have failed to link the tactics of the Giuliani administration to the large decrease in crime rates. Despite the evidence disproving his claims, Giuliani went on to gain a reputation amongst politicians as the “tough guy on crime.” Specifically, he is known for taking down organized crime.
Giuliani capitalized off of that reputation, offering consulting services on security and police reform to countries around the world and drawing the attention of conservative leaders like Abinader during his 2020 bid for president.
Giuliani has worked for foreign governments since before his 2008 campaign for president and his work with the Trump administration.
In 2003, Giuliani’s firm developed a security proposal for Mexico City— at a reported price of $4.3 million— that triggered a public backlash. “The Giuliani plan did not have any effect,” police officer Nicocio Acosta Leon said at the time, according to the New York Sun. “It was money in the trash.”
After recent controversies such as the Dominion lawsuit, the Abinader administration dropped Giuliani and is now getting consulting advice from his former partner, John Huvane, who left Giuliani’s firm in October.
This month, the Chairman of the New York State Senate Judiciary Committee formally requested to strip Giuliani of his law license, citing his violent rhetoric at a Trump rally before the Capital riot.
This tough-on-crime character that Rudy Giuliani has sold to the masses is simply untrue. Not only is he ineffective in doing so, but at times he actively incites violence.
Rudy Giuliani is the archetype of your loud Italian-American uncle that you only invite to Thanksgiving because you have to. In a normal world, this is what Rudy Giuliani represents, yet in the world of American politics he is referred to as “America’s Mayor.” A man who said Black Lives Matter ‘wants to come and take your house away from you’ on Fox News does not care about the 2.06 million African Americans living in New York. A man who actively incited a fascist coup on the Capital does not care about America. He was never a symbol for law and order; he isn’t the spokesperson for New York residents, and he is definitely not “America’s Mayor.”
