I Wonder How You Keep Track of Me

by Molly Ivors

Thers often notes that we have a faithful marriage partly because cheating would be complicated and annoying and a lot of work. (Oh, and you know, we love each other and all that.)

But it would be far less complicated for us than for others. Hell, we don't even have a police detail.

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”

The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani’s New York Police Department security detail.
..........
But the practice of transferring the travel expenses of Giuliani's security detail to the accounts of obscure mayoral offices has never been brought to light, despite behind-the-scenes criticism from the city comptroller weeks after Giuliani left office.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani's two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.
..........
The receipts have languished in city files since Giuliani left office, apparently in part because of City Hall's decision to bill police expenses to a range of little-known city offices.

"There is no really good reason to do this except to have nobody know about it," Carol O'Cleireacain, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who was budget director under Giuliani's predecessor, David Dinkins, said of the unusual billing practices.
..........
None of the 2001 trips to Southampton appear in Giuliani's official schedule. However, the schedule does contain a potential clue to his destination. Before three of them, Giuliani paid a visit to his barber, Carlo Fargnoli, on York Avenue near the mayor's official residence, Gracie Mansion.

Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that he was screwing around on his wife in plain sight. (That's Donna Hanover, wife number 2, for those of you keeping a scorecard; they split in the middle of all this).  No one is questioning that he needed a security detail, or, as Lindsay notes, that he had a right to get out of town sometimes.

But.

He traveled with 4 officers, who routinely racked up $1K a night bills, sometimes twice that. Did they know why they were there? Why he was? If they were there to provide security, why weren't they staying with him? I'm not suggesing a Lincoln-esque sharing of the bed with his security detail, but a hotel down the road--in fact, over eleven miles away--seems a little inefficient for the purposes of protecting Hizzoner.*

Steve Benen thinks, a bit optimistically, I think, that this is the end of Rudy. I dunno. Maybe his prostate cancer will pop back up again, like the last time it was looking like he had to face She Who Must Not Be Named.

Cuing Arkansas state troopers in 5... 4... 3... 2...

*NB, it may be that Ms. Nathan's place wasn't really 20 minutes away from the hotel billed here, but it certainly wasn't next door, either. Several sources say she could see Noyack Bay from her condo, so a hotel on the south shore seems like an odd choice.

UPDATE: The Kenosha Kid has another theory as to why this might be the end of Rudy and, as it addresses the silent core racism of the Republican base, he might have a point.