Easily missed on Page 35 of today's New York Times: A story concluding that the media circus over whether then-mayor Rudy Giuliani tried to hide security costs for visits to then-girlfriend Judith Nathan in Southampton in obscure agency budgets was hogwash.
The story by Russ Buettner -- with an overline calling it a "Checkpoint" feature -- declares that a full review of city records indicates that it is "not likely" that Giuliani was using accounting tricks to keep the expenses secret. It said that more of the expenses were actually billed to the mayor's office than to obscure agencies like the Loft Board, and that the $2474 in Judith-visits billed to unusual agencies was dwarfed by a total of $281,338 in travel expenses that was also billed to the same unusual agencies.
It's not necessarily definitive, and it's not the first review of the records to suggest that the worst interpretation of the billing did not seem to fit the facts. But it seems to be the most comprehensive, and it does assert a pretty clear, exculpatory conclusion. So, given the big splash and the huge impact the Judith-billing controversy had on Rudy's campaign -- it's kind of curious that the Times plays it on the bottom of page 35, isn't it?
Comments (1)
I can't wait until Sam Zell fires you. You are easily the worst political blogger in New York. A slight chip on the shoulder or snarky attitude is amusing for a while, but your snide writing and cheap editorializing on every single news story is disgusting.
I'm sure that your level of posting on this blog and the number of readers are inversely proportional. I hope Zell does all the Long Island political junkies a favor and gets rid of you.