Review of “The Biden Crime Family” by Rudy Giuliani – Unhappy is so Unfortunate | Books

AAs a federal prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani sent a congressman to prison, imprisoned mobsters and outwitted Wall Street bankers. As mayor of New York City, he made the streets safe. After 9/11, he calmed a frightened city.

But ambition and hard life overwhelmed him.

His appearance in the second Borat film four years ago, with his hands down his pants in a hotel room, is an image best forgotten – but very difficult to actually forget. His work as Donald Trump's personal lawyer also remains. After Trump's defeat in 2020, as Giuliani spread the election fraud lie under lights and cameras, hair dye dripped down his face. Another scene for the ages.

Disgraced and disbarred, Giuliani is also facing criminal charges in Georgia (along with Trump) and Arizona. In Manhattan, a federal judge recently ordered Giuliani to turn over valuables and his Upper East Side penthouse to Georgia campaign workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he defamed. The former mayor owes the two women $150 million – and still complains. Last week at Madison Square Garden, at Trump's hate rally, Giuliani was just another warm-up act.

This week, seven days before Election Day, Giuliani released The Biden Crime Family. Another attempt at relevance: it's less a book than a failed opposition research dump, another reminder of its author's shambolic lineage. It was written for another presidential election, which lasted until Joe Biden withdrew in July. Months later, here it is. Unhappy is like being unhappy.

There are some autobiographies that are inevitably interesting given Giuliani's picaresque career. He revels in his past triumphs as a federal prosecutor – but in doing so he once again brings Trump into disrepute.

A replay of the 1986 trial of Stanley Friedman begins with a description of the “very powerful – and very corrupt – head of the Democratic Party in New York's Bronx” whom Giuliani wanted to bring down. So far, so good.

“He was a lobbyist who got people hired and then used that influence to get what he wanted. At the time, he wielded great power within New York City Mayor Ed Koch's City Hall administration.” Still good.

But here's the thing: As CBS reported in 2016, during cross-examination, Rudy highlighted Friedman's relationship with Roy Cohn — then Trump's personal lawyer and fixer, the role Giuliani would later take on himself.

Giuliani: “And you told us during your direct examination, Mr. Friedman, that in the latter part of your term as deputy mayor, you had meetings with Roy Cohn and discussed joining his law firm; isn't that right?

Friedman: “Roy Cohn told me sometime before [that]“If you get out of government and are ever interested in joining my company, then let’s talk, and I’m interested in you.” Words to that effect.”

Giuliani: “Isn't it a fact that in your last week to 10 days in office, you signed very profitable contracts with one of Roy Cohn's major clients, Donald Trump – contracts worth millions of dollars? You signed when you were deputy mayor and went to his law office a few days, if not a week later? …You knew that Donald Trump was a client of Roy Cohn…You knew he was a client of the law firm you were about to join a few days later?”

Friedman: “Yes, I did.”

Game, set, win. Friedman got 12 years.

Decades later, as he awaits his own fate in the courtroom, Giuliani attributes his and Trump's legal troubles to persecution by “a fascist regime.” Practically speaking, Giuliani shouldn't drop the F-word now, and not just because John Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, recently called Trump a fascist.

Back in 2000, the Village Voice published an investigation into Giuliani's family history by Wayne Barrett, the great investigative reporter and biographer of both Giuliani and Trump. Barrett described conversations at the Giuliani dinner table during World War II. Harold Giuliani, Rudy's father, was there and not at the front – because he was a Mafia enforcer and heist guy who had been involved with Sing Sing, and therefore wasn't the type of guy Uncle Sam wanted in uniform.

Barrett, meanwhile, wrote of Rudy's mother: “The fact that her homeland was an Axis country did not diminish Helen Giuliani's sense of patriotism.” “She liked Mussolini and stuff like that,” recalls Anna, Rudy's aunt.

There is more – although of course not in Giuliani's new book. In 1989, during Giuliani's first campaign for mayor, it was revealed that a concentration camp survivor, Simon Berger, appeared in Giuliani's office for questioning and was forced to sit next to a board with the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” written on the gates. stood by Auschwitz. Berger was acquitted on charges of “Nazi tactics”.

As Giuliani now writes: “I'm going to quote my good friend Steve Bannon, who always says, 'There are NO conspiracies, but there are NO coincidences.'”

Giuliani's book was published on Tuesday – the day Bannon himself was released from prison after serving four months for contempt of Congress. Bannon gives Giuliani a foreword. It lacks the fire and anger of previous statements from Trump's former White House strategist. Bannon calls Giuliani a “brilliant lawyer” and concludes: “Every American will understand after reading this book that the Biden family… and even non-consanguineous close allies – represent a threat to the United States.”

To repeat: Biden has not been a candidate for re-election for three months or more.

Yet none of these people are ready to leave the stage. Four years ago, Trump pardoned Bannon on fraud and conspiracy charges. In December, Bannon will go on trial in New York in connection with an alleged border wall scam. Since this is a state case, a presidential pardon is not possible. Elsewhere, Trump and Giuliani themselves are facing criminal charges. Next week's election will go a long way toward determining how long either candidate remains vacant.