Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City who has spent the last fifteen years morphing slowly yet inexorably into an old man who yells at clouds, announced today that he will head up some kind of working group on cybersecurity—or, as his boss-to-be puts it, "the cyber." We'll let Giuliani explain:

The president-elect decided that he wanted to bring in on a regular basis the people in the private sector—the corporate leaders and thought leaders—who were working on security for cyber.

For those of you understandably concerned with the prospect of a gentleman born during World War II leading the nation's efforts to thwart sophisticated cyberattacks perpetrated by foreign governments, Giuliani allegedly does have experience in this field. The depth of said experience, though, is...murky. The former mayor is listed as a chair of a law firm's "Cybersecurity, Privacy and Crisis Management" practice and his consulting firm markets itself as a "Security and Safety" outfit with at least some experience in combating cyberattacks. On the other hand, his role at those organizations is almost certainly more symbolic (and financial) than substantive, and Giuliani's information technology résumé also includes placing the NYPD's emergency command center in the World Trade Center, a decision that left the city's emergency response capabilities crippled after September 11. From the New York Times:

The New York Police Department produced a detailed analysis in 1998 opposing plans by the city to locate its emergency command center at the World Trade Center, but the Giuliani administration overrode those objections. The command center later collapsed from damage in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. “Seven World Trade Center is a poor choice for the site of a crucial command center for the top leadership of the City of New York,” a panel of police experts, which was aided by the Secret Service, concluded in a confidential Police Department memorandum.

Although Giuliani's articulation of his new role can generously be described as "muddled," the idea appears to be that he'll facilitate occasional meetings between private sector cybersecurity experts, encouraging them to swap ideas and engage in some good old-fashioned brainstorming. This seems harmless enough, but it's still entirely unclear why Rudy Giuliani is the man they've deemed most fit to lead in the "security for cyber" space, particularly in an era where fighting foreign adversaries' increasingly sophisticated efforts to undermine democracy is more important than ever.

Given given that Trump reportedly gave Giuliani the ol' "hard pass" on a cabinet position, the most likely explanation is that the president-elect ran out of meaningful appointments, and figured he'd just make Giuliani go away by stashing him where he'll be able to do the least harm. You know, hopefully.