Saturday, March 31, 2007

Wash Post: Feds Want To Indict Kerik On Felony Charges

More bad news for Rudy Giuliani:

Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.

Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet. Giuliani, the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination according to most polls, later called the recommendation a mistake.

Kerik rose from being a warden and police detective to become Giuliani's campaign security adviser, corrections chief, police commissioner and eventual partner in Giuliani-Kerik, a security arm of Giuliani Partners, which Giuliani established after leaving office in 2001. Kerik resigned his positions in Giuliani's firm after he was nominated to the homeland security job.

...

The case against Kerik that federal prosecutors are preparing could generate uncomfortable political attention for Giuliani because it focuses on Kerik's activities while the two men were in government together and were jointly running Giuliani-Kerik, which was paid millions of dollars for advising upstart companies, doing federal work and consulting with clients overseas.

Even as Giuliani prepared to announce his presidential bid, his political team had identified as a political liability the man who had stood stoically by the mayor's side after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, according to a strategy memo that surfaced in January.

Kerik's legal troubles could damage the law-and-order image that is the bedrock of Giuliani's campaign, said Republican political consultant Nelson Warfield, who is not aligned with any 2008 candidate. "Kerik has potential to undermine his image as a competent leader and someone best fit to fight terrorism," Warfield said. "Either he had fundamentally bad information about Kerik, or he was reckless in not knowing enough about a man who was that close to him."

Of course none of these revelations about Kerik and Rudy will deter Chris Matthews and the rest of the news media pom-pom crew away from their masturbatory fantasies of "Tough Guy Rudy" giving "Shrew Hillary" and "Cheatin' Bill" the comeuppance they deserve in 2008.

While I agree the Clintons deserve a major dose of comeuppance, I also think arrogant asshole Rudy deserves just as big a dose.

Oh, well - we'll just have to see how this plays out for '08. The good news is, there is a very good chance that Bernie Kerik will be doing some jail time in the near future.

I wonder how the other inmates will react to him around the prison courtyard during exercise time?

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