Remember when Rudy Guiliani was crowned "America's Mayor?" Major yikes. Huge. Wow, how the mighty have been exposed. And now, the most recent allegations against him could land him in serious legal trouble.
A 70-page complaint, filed by Giuliani’s former assistant Noelle Dunphy in New York in May, alleges a scheme to sell presidential pardons for $2 million each while he was Donald Trump’s lawyer. He and Trump reportedly planned to split the cash. If true, this is corruption at the highest levels of government.
Sign if you agree: The Justice Department must investigate Dunphy's allegations to determine whether or not Giuliani violated federal law by attempting to sell presidential pardons.
Unfortunately, it seems Giuliani's offenses didn't stop at corruption. (I mean, does it ever stop at corruption?) "The complaint is filled with allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, drug and alcohol use, and labor law violations," writes Daily Kos’ Walter Einenkel, who goes on to list the offenses.
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Moreover, this was, in fact, not the first time a price for a pardon arose around Giuliani. Back in 2020, after voters successfully kicked the orange menace out of the White House, Trump issued a number of curious pardons and commutations—including one for his white-supremacist-in-chief Steve Bannon, and reportedly looked into pre-emptively pardoning those in his inner circle for crimes they claim they never committed. I'm no attorney but it seems strange to me to need pardons for something you didn't do. *casually looks over at the Sedition Caucus* Guiliani denied the accusations, though his lawyer deftly sidestepped the question by saying, "he would know."
A few weeks later, CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou told Democracy Now! that one of Giuliani's aides told him a pardon would cost $2 million.
“One of his aides who was there at the meeting then said to me, 'Rudy doesn't talk about pardons. You have to talk to me. And he’s going to ask you for $2 million.’ And I laughed. And I said, 'I don't have $2 million.’ I said, 'Are you out of your mind? Two million dollars? Why would I spend $2 million to recover a $700,000 pension? That doesn't make any sense.’ And I dropped it. But he said that that’s what the price was.”
Federal investigators also looked into Giuliani's business dealings with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were accused of "conspiring to circumvent federal campaign finance laws by funneling foreign money to U.S. political candidates in a scheme to buy influence." Of course, we shouldn't forget that Giuliani could still be charged in Georgia for his role in helping Trump attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
In the midst of all of this, a pattern emerges: Trump and Trump associates, like Giuliani, abused the office of the president for their own personal and unlawful gains. I once again find myself agreeing with Einenkel: "If even half of these allegations turn out to be true, it would be a perfect ending to the moral degeneracy that was Rudolph Giuliani."
It's well past time to introduce Rudy to the concept of accountability.
Sign the petition to the Department of Justice: Investigate Rudy Giuliani. Again.