Rudolph William Louis <!--NOTE: Do not add "Rudy" here per WP:HYPOCORISM.-->Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and disbarred lawyer who served as the 108th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the U.S. Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989. Giuliani led the 1980s federal prosecution of New York City mafia bosses as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. After a failed campaign for mayor of New York City in the 1989 election, he succeeded in 1993, and was reelected in 1997, campaigning on a "tough on crime" platform. He led New York's controversial "civic cleanup" from 1994 to 2001, For his mayoral leadership following the September 11 attacks in 2001, he was called "America's mayor"

In 2002, Giuliani founded a security consulting business, Giuliani Partners, yet did poorly in the primary election; he later withdrew and endorsed the party's subsequent nominee, John McCain. After advising Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and early administration, Giuliani joined President Trump's personal legal team in April 2018, remaining on it during the 2020 presidential election. His activities as Trump's attorney led to allegations that he engaged in corruption and profiteering. In 2019, Giuliani was a central figure in the Trump–Ukraine scandal.

Following the 2020 election, Giuliani represented Trump in many lawsuits filed in attempts to overturn the election results, making false and debunked allegations about rigged voting machines, polling place fraud, and an international communist conspiracy. Giuliani spoke at the rally preceding the January 6 United States Capitol attack, where he made false claims of voter fraud and called for "trial by combat". He was later also listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal prosecution of Trump's alleged attempts to overturn the election. In August 2023, he was indicted in the prosecution related to the 2020 election in Georgia. Later in 2023, Giuliani lost a $148-million defamation lawsuit for his false claims about two election workers in Georgia, and unsuccessfully attempted to declare bankruptcy; In April 2024, he was indicted on charges related to the 2020 election in Arizona. and in the District of Columbia in September. In November 2025, Trump issued a federal pardon to Giuliani.

Early life and education

Giuliani was born on May 28, 1944, in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City, which at the time of his birth was a largely Italian American enclave of Brooklyn. He is the only child of working-class parents Helen (née D'Avanzo) and Harold Angelo Giuliani, both children of Italian immigrants. Harold Giuliani, a plumber and a bartender, had trouble holding a job, was convicted of felony assault and robbery, and served prison time in Sing Sing. Once released, Harold worked as an enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo, who operated an organized crime-affiliated loan sharking and gambling ring from a restaurant in Brooklyn.

Giuliani was raised a Roman Catholic. When he was seven years old, his family moved from Brooklyn to Garden City South on Long Island, where he attended the local Catholic school, St. Anne's. Later, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, from which he graduated in 1961. Giuliani attended Manhattan College in Riverdale, Bronx, where he majored in political science with a minor in philosophy. Giuliani was elected president of his class in his second year, but was not re-elected in his junior year. He joined the Phi Rho Pi college forensic fraternity and honor society. He graduated in 1965. Giuliani considered becoming a priest but decided to attend New York University School of Law in Manhattan, where he was a member of the New York University Law Review,

thumb|left|Giuliani greeting President [[Ronald Reagan in 1984]]

Giuliani started his career and political life as a Democrat, working as a Democratic Party committeeman on Long Island in the mid-1960s. In 1968, he volunteered for Robert F. Kennedy's campaign in the 1968 U.S. presidential election, and voted for George McGovern in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. After graduating from law school, Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd Francis MacMahon, U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York.

Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War. His conscription was deferred while he was enrolled at Manhattan College and NYU Law. Upon graduation from law school in 1968, he was classified 1-A (available for military service), but in 1969 he was reclassified 2-A (essential civilian) as Judge MacMahon's law clerk. In 1970, Giuliani was reclassified 1-A but received a high 308 draft lottery number and was not called up for service.

U.S. associate deputy attorney general

Giuliani switched his party registration from Democratic to independent in 1975.

From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter administration, Giuliani practiced law at the Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler law firm as chief of staff to his former boss Ace Tyler. In later years, Tyler became "disillusioned" by what Tyler described as Giuliani's time as U.S. attorney, criticizing several of his prosecutions as "overkill". the third-highest position in the U.S. Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised the U.S. Attorney Offices' federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Marshals Service. In a well-publicized 1982 case, Giuliani testified in defense of the U.S. federal government's "detention posture" regarding the internment of more than 2,000 Haitian asylum seekers who had entered the country illegally. The U.S. government disputed the assertion that most of the detainees had fled their country due to political persecution, alleging instead that they were "economic migrants". In defense of the government's position, Giuliani testified that "political repression, at least in general, does not exist" under Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier's regime.

U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York

In 1983, Giuliani was appointed to be U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which was technically a demotion but was sought by Giuliani because of his desire to personally litigate cases and because the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is considered the highest-profile U.S. Attorney's Office in the country and as such is often used by those who have held the position as a springboard for running for public office. It was in this position that he first gained national prominence by prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, resulting in the convictions of Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. He also focused on prosecuting drug dealers, organized crime, and corruption in government. After Giuliani "patented the perp walk", the tool was used by increasing numbers of prosecutors nationwide.

Giuliani's critics said that he arranged for people to be arrested but then dropped charges for lack of evidence on high-profile cases rather than going to trial. In a few cases, his arrests of alleged white-collar criminals at their workplaces with charges later dropped or lessened sparked controversy and damaged the reputations of the alleged "perps". He said veteran stock trader Richard Wigton, of Kidder, Peabody & Co., was guilty of insider trading. In February 1987, he had officers handcuff Wigton and march him through the company's trading floor, with Wigton in tears. Giuliani had his agents arrest Tim Tabor, a young arbitrageur and former colleague of Wigton, so late that he had to stay overnight in jail before posting bond.

Within three months, charges were dropped against both Wigton and Tabor. Giuliani said, "We're not going to go to trial. We're just the tip of the iceberg", but no further charges were forthcoming and the investigation did not end until Giuliani's successor was in place.

Mafia Commission trial

thumb|Giuliani as U.S. Attorney in 1984, as photographed by [[Bernard Gotfryd]]

In the Mafia Commission Trial, which ran from February 25, 1985, through November 19, 1986, Giuliani indicted eleven organized crime figures, including the heads of New York City's "Five Families", under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) on charges including extortion, labor racketeering, and murder for hire. In 2001, Time magazine called this "case of cases" possibly "the most significant assault on the infrastructure of organized crime since the high command of the Chicago Mafia was swept away in 1943", and quoted Giuliani's stated intention: "Our approach is to wipe out the five families." Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano evaded conviction when he and his underboss Thomas Bilotti were murdered on the streets of midtown Manhattan on December&nbsp;16, 1985; however, three heads of the Five Families were sentenced to 100 years in prison on January 13, 1987.

Genovese and Colombo leaders, Tony Salerno and Carmine Persico, received additional sentences in separate trials, with 70-year and 39-year sentences to run consecutively. He was assisted by three assistant U.S. attorneys: Michael Chertoff, the eventual second U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act; John Savarese, now a partner at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz; and Gil Childers, a later deputy chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of New York and now managing director in the legal department at Goldman Sachs. According to an FBI memo revealed in 2007, leaders of the Five Families voted in late 1986 on whether to issue a contract for Giuliani's death. Heads of the Lucchese, Bonanno, and Genovese families rejected the idea, although Colombo and Gambino leaders, Carmine Persico and John Gotti, encouraged assassination.

In 2014, it was revealed by former Sicilian Mafia member and informant Rosario Naimo that Salvatore Riina, a notorious Sicilian Mafia leader, had ordered a murder contract on Giuliani during the mid-1980s. Riina allegedly was suspicious of Giuliani's efforts prosecuting the American Mafia and was worried that he might have spoken with Italian anti-Mafia prosecutors and politicians, including Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were both murdered in 1992 in separate car bombings. According to Giuliani, the Sicilian Mafia offered $800,000 for his death during his first year as mayor of New York in 1994.

Boesky and Milken trials

Ivan Boesky, a Wall Street arbitrageur who had amassed a fortune of about $200million by betting on corporate takeovers, was originally investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for making investments based on tips received from corporate insiders, leading the way for the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York to investigate as well. These stock and options acquisitions were sometimes brazen, with massive purchases occurring only a few days before a corporation announced a takeover. Although insider trading of this kind was illegal, laws prohibiting it were rarely enforced until Boesky was prosecuted. Boesky cooperated with the SEC and informed on several others, including junk bond trader Michael Milken. Per agreement with Giuliani, Boesky received a -year prison sentence along with a $100million fine. In 1989, Giuliani charged Milken under the RICO Act with 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. In a highly publicized case, Milken was indicted by a grand jury on these charges.

Disbarment

In June 2021, Giuliani had his license to practice law suspended in the state of New York, pending an investigation related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. On July 2, 2024, he was disbarred in the state of New York.

Mayoral campaigns

Giuliani was U.S. attorney until January 1989, resigning as the Reagan administration ended. He garnered criticism until he left office for his handling of cases and was accused of prosecuting cases to further his political ambitions.

1989

thumb|Giuliani greeting President [[George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush in 1989]]

Giuliani first ran for New York City mayor in 1989, when he attempted to unseat three-term incumbent Ed Koch. He won the September 1989 Republican Party primary election against business magnate Ronald Lauder in a campaign marked by claims that Giuliani was a not a true Republican (RINO) after an acrimonious debate between the two men.

In the Democratic primary, Koch was upset by David Dinkins, who was Manhattan Borough president. In the general election, Giuliani ran as the fusion candidate of both the Republican and the Liberal parties. The Conservative Party, which had often co-lined the Republican party candidate, withheld support from Giuliani and ran Lauder instead. Conservative Party leaders were unhappy with Giuliani on ideological grounds. They cited the Liberal Party's endorsement statement that Giuliani "agreed with the Liberal Party's views on affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer, and tuition tax credits".

During two televised debates, Giuliani framed himself as an agent of change, saying, "I'm the reformer", that "If we keep going merrily along, this city's going down", and that electing Dinkins would represent "more of the same, more of the rotten politics that have been dragging us down". In the end, Giuliani lost to Dinkins by a margin of 47,080 votes out of 1,899,845 votes cast, in what was the closest election in New York City's history. The closeness of the race was particularly noteworthy, considering the small percentage of New York City residents who were registered Republicans, and it resulted in Giuliani being the presumptive nominee for a rematch with Dinkins at the next election. Although crime had begun to fall during the Dinkins administration, Giuliani's campaign capitalized on the perception that crime was uncontrolled in the city following events such as the Crown Heights riot and the Family Red Apple boycott. The year prior to the election, Giuliani was a key speaker at a Patrolmen's Benevolent Association rally opposing Dinkins, in which Giuliani blamed the police department's low morale on Dinkins' leadership. The rally quickly devolved into a riot, with nearly 4,000 off-duty police officers storming the City Hall and blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Dinkins and Giuliani never debated during the campaign, because they were never able to agree on how to approach a debate. while Giuliani was endorsed by the New York Post and the New York Daily News (a key switch from 1989). Giuliani went to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, seeking his blessing and endorsement.

On election day, Giuliani's campaign hired off-duty cops, firefighters, and corrections officers to monitor polling places in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx for cases of voter fraud. Despite objections from the Dinkins campaign, who said that the effort would intimidate Democratic voters, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly assigned an additional 52 police captains and 3,500 officers to monitor the city's polling places. Similar to the election four years prior, Giuliani performed particularly well in the white ethnic neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Giuliani saw especially high returns in the borough of Staten Island, as a referendum to consider allowing the borough to secede from New York City was on the ballot. In the general election, Giuliani once again had the Liberal Party and not the Conservative Party listing. Giuliani ran an aggressive campaign, parlaying his image as a tough leader who had cleaned up the city. Giuliani's popularity was at its highest point to date, with a late October 1997 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll showing him as having a 68 percent approval rating; 70 percent of New Yorkers were satisfied with life in the city and 64 percent said things were better in the city compared to four years previously.

Throughout the campaign, Giuliani was well ahead in the polls and had a strong fund-raising advantage over Messinger. On her part, Messinger lost the support of several usually Democratic constituencies, including gay organizations and large labor unions. The major local daily newspapers (The New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, and Newsday) all endorsed Giuliani over Messinger. In the end, Giuliani won 58% of the vote to Messinger's 41%, becoming the first registered Republican to win a second term as mayor while on the Republican line since Fiorello H. La Guardia in 1941. The margin of victory included gains in his share of the African American vote (20% compared to 1993's 5%) and the Hispanic vote (43% from 37%) while maintaining his base of white ethnic and Catholic and Jewish voters from 1993.

The legal underpinning for removing the "squeegee men" from the streets was developed under Giuliani's predecessor David Dinkins. Bratton, with Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple, also created and instituted CompStat, a computer-driven comparative statistical approach to mapping crime geographically and in terms of emerging criminal patterns, as well as charting officer performance by quantifying criminal apprehensions. Critics of the system assert that it creates an environment in which police officials are encouraged to underreport or otherwise manipulate crime data. An extensive study found a high correlation between crime rates reported by the police through CompStat and rates of crime available from other sources, suggesting there had been no manipulation. The CompStat initiative won the 1996 Innovations in Government Award from Harvard Kennedy School.

thumb|300px|left|National, New York City, and other major city crime rates (1990–2002)

During Giuliani's administration, crime rates dropped in New York City. Crime rates in New York City had started to drop in 1991 under Dinkins, three years before Giuliani took office. A small nationwide drop in crime preceded Giuliani's election, and some critics say he may have been the beneficiary of a trend already in progress. Additional contributing factors to the overall decline in New York City crime during the 1990s were the addition of 7,000 officers to the NYPD, lobbied for and hired by the Dinkins administration, and an overall improvement in the national economy.

Changing demographics were a key factor contributing to crime rate reductions, which were similar across the country during this time. Because the crime index is based on that of the FBI, which is self-reported by police departments, some have alleged that crimes were shifted into categories the FBI does not collect. In his 2006 book The Great American Crime Decline, sociologist Frank Zimring stated that "up to half of New York's crime drop in the 1990s, and virtually 100 percent of its continuing crime decline since 2000, has resulted from policing."

Bratton was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1996. Giuliani reportedly forced Bratton out after two years, in what was seen as a battle of two large egos in which Giuliani was not tolerant of Bratton's celebrity. Bratton went on to become chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. Giuliani's term also saw allegations of civil rights abuses and other police misconduct under other commissioners after Bratton's departure. There were police shootings of unarmed suspects, and the scandals surrounding the torture of Abner Louima and the killings of Amadou Diallo, Gidone Busch, and Patrick Dorismond. Giuliani supported the NYPD, for example by releasing what he called Dorismond's "extensive criminal record" to the public, including a sealed juvenile file.

City services

The Giuliani administration advocated the privatization of the city's public schools, which he called "dysfunctional", and the reduction of state funding for them. He advocated a voucher-based system to promote private schooling. Giuliani supported protection for illegal immigrants. He continued a policy of preventing city employees from contacting the Immigration and Naturalization Service about immigration violations, on the grounds that illegal immigrants should be able to take actions such as sending their children to school or reporting crimes to the police without fear of deportation. During his mayoralty, gay and lesbian New Yorkers received domestic partnership rights. Giuliani induced the city's Democratic-controlled New York City Council, which had avoided the issue for years, to pass legislation providing broad protection for same-sex partners. In 1998, he codified local law by granting all city employees equal benefits for their domestic partners.

2000 U.S. Senate campaign

thumb|left|Giuliani campaigned for Senate in 2000 before withdrawing after being diagnosed with cancer

With term limits, Giuliani was ineligible to run in 2001 for a third term as mayor. In November 1998, four-term incumbent Democratic U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement and Giuliani immediately indicated an interest in running in the 2000 election for the now-open seat. Because of his high profile and visibility, Giuliani was supported by the state Republican Party. Giuliani's entrance led Democratic congressman Charles Rangel and others to recruit then-First Lady Hillary Clinton to run for Moynihan's seat, hoping she might combat his star power.

In April 1999, Giuliani formed an exploratory committee in connection with the Senate run. By January 2000, polling for the race showed Giuliani nine points ahead of Clinton, in part because his campaign was able to take advantage of several campaign stumbles by Clinton. In March 2000, the New York Police Department's fatal shooting of Patrick Dorismond inflamed Giuliani's strained relations with the city's minority communities, and Clinton seized on it as a major campaign issue. Clinton was now eight to ten points ahead of Giuliani in the polls.

September 11 terrorist attacks

thumb|right|[[Donald Rumsfeld and Giuliani at the site of the World Trade Center on November 14, 2001]]

Response

Giuliani received nationwide attention in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. He made frequent appearances on radio and television on September11 and afterwardsfor example, to indicate that tunnels would be closed as a precautionary measure, and that there was no reason to believe the dispersion of chemical or biological weaponry into the air was a factor in the attack. In his public statements, Giuliani said: