As if a troubling family history wasn’t causing enough problems for the as-yet-undeclared candidacy of Rudy Giuliani, now comes the relevalation that his law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP, can count Hugo Chavez among it’s clients:

HOUSTON — Rudy Giuliani’s law firm has received $100,000 to $200,000 since 2005 to lobby Texas legislators on behalf of Citgo Petroleum Corp., a Houston-based oil company ultimately controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Records with the Texas Ethics Commission show that Shannon H. Ratliff II, an attorney with Bracewell & Giuliani of Houston has been registered to lobby the state legislature for Citgo since April 2005. But David McCollum, a spokesman for Citgo, said the company has had a lobbying contract with the law firm since before Giuliani joined and it was named Bracewell & Patterson.

“I think the only reason this is coming out is because this is a political year, and Mr. Giuliani’s name is on the law firm,” McCollum said. “But Mr. Giuliani has no personal involvement in this at all . . . If this weren’t a political year, this would get no attention at all.”

Giuliani is the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Although Citgo Petroleum is a U.S.-based company, it was bought in 1990 by Petroleos de Venezuela, the national oil company of Venezuela. The Bush administration has criticized Chavez as being uncooperative in the global war on terrorism.