Birmingham Blues

Federal prosecutors will go before a grand jury tomorrow, seeking indictments against former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. The grand jury has heard evidence over the past year of tax fraud, corruption, and conspiracy. If an indictment is handed down, it will be sealed till Friday.

Giuliani appointed Kerik to the post of Police Commissioner in 2000 and pushed his nomination to be Secretary of Homeland Security in 2004, a nomination that was withdrawn after some less than savory information was uncovered in a background check. That information was apparently widely known but somehow not documented in city records.

The agency said in a statement yesterday that it has been unable to find any evidence that Mr. Kerik had filled out a background form, as usually required, before his appointment to the post by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Officials are also interviewing employees and searching for records that might explain why a body of uncomplimentary information the agency had learned about Mr. Kerik was apparently never considered by City Hall before his appointment in August 2000.

Two months before the appointment, the department learned that Mr. Kerik had a social relationship with the owner of a New Jersey construction company suspected of having business ties to organized crime figures. Investigators knew further that the company’s owner had hired both Donald Kerik, Mr. Kerik’s brother, and Lawrence Ray, the best man at Mr. Kerik’s wedding, during a period when one of his companies was seeking a license from the city, according to city documents.

Of course, Giuliani had no idea that his close friend had questionable associations, and no one bothered to tell him. Sure.

Mr. Kerik notified city investigators in the spring of 2000 that Mr. Ray had been indicted on federal criminal charges unrelated to the company. That and other questions about Mr. Kerik’s relationship with construction company officials prompted the city’s investigations commissioner at the time, Edward J. Kuriansky, to question Mr. Kerik sometime in 2000, according to city officials. But Mr. Giuliani said no information gleaned from the city’s review of Mr. Kerik’s relationships was ever forwarded to him before he selected Mr. Kerik as police commissioner.

Giuliani later, um, amended that statement to say that he couldn’t recall being warned about Kerik’s ties to a suspected organized crime figure, even though records show the city’s Investigations Commissioner not only briefed him but also one of his closest aides. Of course, this revelation would more likely indicate that Giuliani didn’t care:

When Mr. Giuliani became mayor, he gave Mr. Kerik a job in the Correction Department. A year later, the mayor asked him to drop by Gracie Mansion.

The two men sat upstairs and shared a bottle of red wine, a gift to the mayor from Nelson Mandela. Mr. Giuliani said he planned to appoint Mr. Kerik as first deputy correction commissioner.

Mr. Kerik, who wrote of this in his autobiography, “The Lost Son,” was taken aback; he was a year removed from being a police detective.

“Mayor, I appreciate your confidence in me, I really do,” he said. “But I ran a jail. One jail. Rikers is like 10 jails.”

Just do it, the mayor replied.

Mr. Kerik followed Mr. Giuliani downstairs to a dimly lighted room. There waited Mr. Giuliani’s boyhood chum Peter J. Powers, who was first deputy mayor, and other aides. One by one, they pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek.

“I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled becoming part of a mafia family,” Mr. Kerik wrote. “I was being made.”

Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report has more, noting that Giuliani’s tendency to value loyalty over qualifications and to ignore dissent from his advisors (more than half of his cabinet opposed his decision to appoint Kerik as Police Commissioner) is frighteningly similar to the current occupant of the White House.

Why does this sound so familiar? A chief executive who’ll put loyalty above merit, even if that means putting suspected criminals in positions of power and authority — just what the country needs right now…

…Ladies and gentleman, your Republican frontrunner for President of the United States.

Great. Just great. Now move along. Nothing to see here. Giuliani’s “not concerned”, and we shouldn’t be either.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 7:33 pm and is filed under Stupid Conservative Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.