Giuliani Engages In Government-Financed Adultery

This could end up being a big deal, because nothing gets the media going more than hypocrisy and sex.

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

Yes, it would be hard to justify expenses incurred out in the Hamptons, which is kind of, you know, not in New York City.

Isn't Giuliani the guy who goes on and on about how government-financed health care is like socialism? What does that make government-financed adultery?

Also, Rudy isn't exactly poor. He couldn't spring for a city hotel room to have his trysts with Judi Nathan, instead of putting it on the public dime and forcing the security detail to tag along? or he couldn't use the Ground Zero-area love nest like Bernie Kerik? I think this is more about somebody abusing the system because they could, and hiding it from public view because that's the way things are done.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani's two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

When the city's fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani's aides refused, citing "security," said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

But American Express bills and travel documents obtained by Politico suggest another reason City Hall may have considered the documents sensitive: They detail three summers of visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where Nathan had an apartment.

The official secrecy, the abuse of the public trust - sound like somebody currently in the Oval Office that you know?

Interesting to note this too:

Receipts show him in Southampton every weekend in August and the first weekend in September of 2001, before the terror attacks of Sept. 11 disrupted the routines of his city.

9/11 really did change everything. Even Rudy's booty call schedule.

My favorite part of the very detailed article, though, is this:

None of the 2001 trips to Southampton appear in Giuliani's official schedule. However, the schedule does contain a potential clue to his destination. Before three of them, Giuliani paid a visit to his barber, Carlo Fargnoli, on York Avenue near the mayor's official residence, Gracie Mansion.

Judi must have been a stickler for proper appearance. Seriously, a barber before every date? And considering we're talking about Giuliani, for WHAT?

This is less a story about the awkward, bungling efforts to charge the public for his own affairs, so much as what it reveals about Rudy himself, his arrogance, his lack of accountability, his unfamiliarity with ethics.