Giuliani’s Top 10 ‘Shag Fund’ excuses — and why they’re wrong

So, after a very tough week, are things getting better or worse for everyone’s least-favorite scandal-plagued presidential candidate? Take a wild guess.

In the fall of 2001, city cops chauffeured Rudy Giuliani’s then-mistress, Judith Nathan, to her parents’ Pennsylvania home 130 miles away on the taxpayers’ dime. Records show that city cops refueled at an ExxonMobil station down the road from Nathan’s childhood home in Hazleton on Oct. 20, 2001, while Giuliani stayed behind in New York attending 9/11 funerals. A similar receipt pops up at a different Hazleton gas station two months later, when Nathan apparently went home for a pre-Christmas visit with her parents. The records show that – in addition to using City Hall funds to take Giuliani and Nathan to 11 secret trysts in the Hamptons, as has been previously reported – taxpayers were paying to ferry Nathan on long-distance trips without Giuliani, now a Republican contender for President.

Indeed, this scandal has produced several entertaining headlines over the last half-day or so. Giuliani’s campaign aides have begun bullying reporters, there was a new report showing that when the city comptroller initially raised questions about Giuliani’s highly suspicious billing practices he was stonewalled repeatedly, and we also learned that Giuliani made an unusual $400,000 pre-payment to American Express in 2001, which “adds weight to the theory that the Giuliani administration was using accounting gimmicks to obscure his office’s travel expenditures.”

Taking a step back, however, one sees that the former mayor and his aides have come up with a variety of rationalizations to justify Giuliani’s conduct and dubious decisions. I’ve put together a list, with the explanations ranging from merely unpersuasive to transparently ridiculous.

Indeed, I’ve come up with a Top 10 list.



1. The story “isn’t true” — At Wednesday’s debate, Giuliani said Smith’s article “isn’t true.” There’s been no follow-up to explain why he doesn’t think the story is true; he simply wants to assert it.

2. The premise of the story isn’t true — Giuliani adviser Anthony Carbonetti said yesterday that the “premise of the original story has been proven false.” I’m not exactly sure what this means, but both the story and its “premise” remain very much intact, and Team Giuliani hasn’t offered a shred of evidence to the contrary.

3. Giuliani was trying to help the NYPD — Why did Giuliani hide his Shag Fund bills in the budgets of the Loft Board and the Office for People With Disabilities? According to Giuliani, to help the cops get paid faster. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has debunked this argument completely.

4. This is “old news” — Yesterday, Giuliani aides said these revelations are “old news,” which necessarily minimize their significance. First, the billing scandal made headlines on Wednesday, which is pretty “new” news. Second, Giuliani is running for president based on what he did in office. If he wants us to consider his record, are we really supposed to overlook the scandalous parts? By that logic, aren’t his accomplishments from NYC also “old news”? Besides, this defense might have been more effective if Giuliani had answered questions when they first arose in 2001 and 2002, instead of stonewalling investigators.

5. “We’ve already explained it” — As the questions become more intense, Giuliani would only tell reporters yesterday, “We’ve already explained it.” If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many questions. (Note to Rudy: nonsensical rationalizations that have already been debunked do not count as an “explanation.”)

6. The story is a “hit job” — Funny thing about this scandal, the messenger and the message are equally hard to attack. The evidence is based on incontrovertible NYC billing records. That someone found them and started making connections does not a “hit job” make.

7. The money was “reimbursed” — Both Giuliani and his campaign are emphasizing that the various city agencies were eventually reimbursed for the expenses. That’s probably true, but utterly irrelevant. Josh Marshall explained that the whole argument is “basically a distraction. The issue was why they were paying these bills out of these obscure accounts in the first place. Reimbursement or not, it still has the effect of hiding what Rudy was doing.”

8. Everybody does it — Giuliani’s campaign argued that the scandalous billing practices are common in NYC and have been utilized by a variety of other NYC mayors. The campaign then reversed course a few hours later and admitted their claim is completely wrong.

9. Everything was “transparent” — Giuliani and his aides have insisted that the expenses were handled “openly” and “honestly,” and that the billing was “transparent.” NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson has no idea what Giuliani is talking about: “That’s not the way that we operate these days, and it would not be the preferred way of doing business. In the end, it’s a very convoluted way of getting things done. If anyone hoped that no one would notice, they were being foolish.”

10. There was no “cover-up” — Giuliani’s spokesperson was reduced to this pathetic response: “I don’t understand when it started. I don’t understand why it started. But I do know one thing: It was consistently done … in no way shape or form did it imply a cover-up.” First, when you hide unrelated billing records in the Office for People With Disabilities, it looks like a cover-up. Second, when auditors have questions about billing records, and Giuliani and his aides refuse to cooperate or answer any questions, it looks even more like a cover-up.

Usually, when a political scandal breaks, the accused manages to come up with some kind of talking points for supporters to use. So far, Giuliani & Co. are completely stuck, bouncing from one debunked claim after another.

It’s not a good sign.