When I was much younger, I naively believed that endemic corruption was only a problem in other countries–that America would of course have its share of slimy folks, but their influence would be episodic, not part of the culture.
My experience with Indianapolis’ municipal government was consistent with that conviction.
I began to question whether I could generalize that experience when–as a lawyer in private practice–I represented real estate developers and had occasion to interact with lenders from states like New Jersey, where I was astonished to discover it could take a couple of years and some dubious “arrangements” to get a building permit. (At the time, you could pull such a permit in Indianapolis in a day or two.)
These days, watching the Trump Administration is a Master Class in sleaze. As we learn more about the backgrounds of the people Trump has installed in cabinet and White House positions, it becomes more and more apparent that they aren’t new to corruption and self-dealing (just google “best people” sometime…). Presumably, that’s why Trump feels comfortable with them–they are “his kind of people.”
Then there’s Rudy Guiliani. It appears that Trump’s “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” relationship with his “personal lawyer” goes back some years as well–at least to 1988. According to Daily Kos,
U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani had FBI Agent Tony Lombardi end the FBI’s investigation on Trump money laundering. A few weeks later, Donald Trump raised $2 Million for Giuliani’s mayoral campaign. Quid Pro Quo?
Now, Daily Kos is not an unbiased news source. It definitely leans Left. But its political preferences tend to dictate what it chooses to report, and how it reacts to actual “facts on the ground.” To the best of my ability to tell, it doesn’t engage in Fox-like distortion/invention.
Here are relevant portions of the rest of the post:
Journalist, and author, Wayne Barrett writes in his 2016 article:
Tony Lombardi, the federal agent closest to then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, opened a probe of Trump’s role in the suspect sale of two Trump Tower apartments to Robert Hopkins, the mob-connected head of the city’s largest gambling ring.
Barrett explains:
The government subsequently nailed Hopkins’ mortgage broker, Frank LaMagra, on an unrelated charge and he offered to give up Donald, claiming Trump “participated” in the money-laundering — and volunteering to wear a wire on him….
Lombardi, who discussed the case with Giuliani personally (and with me for a 1993 Village Voice piece called “The Case of the Missing Case”), went straight to Donald for two hour-long interviews with him. Within weeks of the interviews, Donald announced he’d raise $2 million in a half hour if Rudy ran for mayor. LaMagra got no deal and was convicted, as was his mob associate, Louis (Louie HaHa) Attanasio, who was later also nailed for seven underworld murders. Hopkins was convicted of running his gambling operation partly out of the Trump Tower apartment, where he was arrested.
Lombardi — who expected a top appointment in a Giuliani mayoralty, conducted several other probes directly tied to Giuliani political opponents, and testified later that “every day I came to work I went to Mr. Giuliani to seek out what duties I needed to perform” — closed the Trump investigation without even giving it a case number. That meant that New Jersey gaming authorities would never know it existed.
I guess the old adage “it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know” was certainly true in New York’s white-collar crime community.
This was 1988. More evidence, as if we needed it, that Guiliani was never entitled to be called “America’s Mayor,” that Trump’s venality is nothing new, and that my naiveté was just that.
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