The Only Accurate Dirt Rudy Ever Dug Was on Himself
Giuliani ordered all copies of his devastating auto-oppo report destroyed, but they were not.
Rudy Giuliani's only client may have left the White House, but the former prosecutor's Jan. 6 call for "trial by combat" means he'll be under scrutiny as the impeachment trial and FBI investigation of the plotting of that day’s insurrection unfold. It's not the first time the bedraggled former mayor played a role in a racist riot or dirty tricks campaign.
These and a litany of other sins were itemized in a thorough investigation of himself–auto-oppo research—that Rudy commissioned when he was running for mayor in 1993. That character assessment was so damaging he ordered all copies destroyed. In fact, he made the campaign research director who wrote the study sit down at each computer at which it had been read and delete the files. That's a lifetime – and several reputation implosions ago.
For decades the Vulnerability Study, as it was called, existed in the minds of the NYC press corps like the white whale. Everyone had heard of it. No one had seen the full copy. Except, of course, relentless Village Voice muckraker Wayne Barrett, who obtained it from a source in a late-night, side-of-the-highway handoff while he was writing Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudy Giuliani. The Vulnerability Study—divided into clear-eyed assessments of his vulnerabilities in politics, his Department of Justice career and his time in private practice and including such subheads as "Racist," "Shameless Publicity Seeker," and "Overzealousness"—exudes a certain soothsayer quality now, the past chuckling into the present. It reveals that the operatic madness of the last couple years isn't new.