Rudy Put $440k In Advance Funds on AMEX Card For Future Travel ...LINK

[Blackhatjack]

And the revelations just keep on coming!

Folks this is just the beginning .... Rudy is facing a thick opposition file, and there are people out there fully committed to exposing him completely. Notice the failure to respond by the Giuliani Campaign ... they know more is on the way.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004811.php

Rudy Put $400,000 In Advance Funds On Credit Card For Travel Expenses

By Paul Kiel and Greg Sargent - November 30, 2007, 7:20PM

"We've been swimming in credit card receipts from Rudy Giuliani's administration today, and one thing in particular has struck us: in 2001, apparently with an eye to future globetrotting, Giuliani's administration sent a check for $400,000 to American Express. Though it was billed to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, an office that provides lawyers for indigent defendants, the money served as an advance against future travel and other expenses later incurred by the mayor's office and his security detail.

The unusually large prepayment, as yet unreported, adds weight to the theory that the Giuliani administration was using accounting gimmicks to obscure his office's travel expenditures.

With $400,000 prepaid on the Amex account, the mayor and his staff drew down on the credit card for a number of trips, including a handful out to the Hamptons, where Judith Nathan had her condo. Giuliani's administration ultimately spent approximately $100,000 of the $400,000 before leaving office in January, 2001.

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, confirmed to us that his administration put a stop to the practice of putting funds for future travel in bulk on a credit card. Shortly after Bloomberg took office, American Express refunded $298,000, the remaining unused balance on the account. The move came shortly after the city comptroller sent the mayor a letter critical of the Giuliani adminsitration's practice of billing obscure city agencies for mayoral travel expenses."

MORE

[TwilightGardener]

1. Who's leaking this stuff? Bloomberg's office?

[Blackhatjack]

2. Rudy's problem is there are so many people who are privvy to this information...

... and there are some folks still upset about what Rudy did while he was Mayor, and they are going to make sure the public knows about it.

Just like the Firemen who were horribly mistreated by Rudy.

They are still suffering, still mad, and they have Rudy in their crosshairs.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. One theory is that someone in the NYC police dept is leaking. The cops hate him

[Blackhatjack]

3. Rudy's problem is that his corruption was too wifespread and well-known while he was Mayor...

A big difference between Rudy and Rove is that Rudy is incompetent, and the people around him are incompetent, when it comes to covering his tracks.

The physical manhandling of the press by the Giuliani people is an indication that Rudy intends to take a denial stance and is not going to answer any questions, because then he would be forced to address physical evidence that is so damning.

The good ship Rudy has battened down the hatches with rough weather ahead.

[Blackhatjack]

4. Another telling excerpt....'a procedure that "appears intentionally opaque,"

Prepaying a city credit card with such a large amount is a procedure that "appears intentionally opaque," a high-level budget official under a previous administration told us. "You're not able to see clearly what is being used for," the official said, "because it's bundled in an AmEx card as opposed to as direct payments to vendors."

The unusual $400,000 prepayment is revealed in a letter from Giuliani's deputy director of fiscal operations that was contained in a package of documents City Hall released today, in response to reporters' questions about Wednesday's Politico story. You can see the letter here.

Giuliani's administration had done a similar thing in June of 2000, cutting checks for $54,000 worth of "prepayment" and billing them to the New York City Loft Board and other backwater agencies.

[Blackhatjack]

6. Rudy looked grim when he walked by the Press with no comment...n/t

[NJCher]

7. loved it when I walked past the newspaper stand today

Seeing Rudi's grim face on the cover of the tabs.



Cher

[BronxBoy]

8. Can anyone clear something up for me?

Was he using these agencies as essentially money laundering fronts or was he actually paying these bills from the coffers of the agency being billed? As bad as this is, it would be even worse if he was taking money from an indigent defense fund to help him bang his mistress.

[Blackhatjack]

9. That's the way accounting makes it look... that the indigent defense fund got the $$$

.... when in fact the $$$ never benefitted anyone who looks to the indigent defense fund for financial assistance.

You can imagine that people who depend on that fund might ask for more funding the next year, and Rudy might say 'well you received more money last year and spent it on God knows what ... we can't just keep increasing the city taxpayer dollars to this fund if they won't take action to reign in their spending."

Righteous Rudy and the voice of financial accountability.... yeah, that's the ticket.