Rudy Giuliani has made millions in his post-9/11, post-mayoral career. He’s started a major strategic consulting firm (Giuliani Partners) and added his name to a major law firm two years ago (now Bracewell & Giuliani), as well as an investment banking firm and a smaller consulting firm. Now that Giuliani’s campaign is in full swing, the business dealings of firms that bear his name will start to garner major scrutiny. From the get-go it looks like Giuliani’s business dealings won’t exactly help his image with the conservative Republican base. To wit, Bracewell & Giuliani has lobbied on behalf of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez-controlled Citgo Petroleum.
Rudolph W. Giuliani’s law firm has lobbied for years on behalf of an oil company controlled by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, a strident critic of President Bush and American-style capitalism.
Bracewell & Giuliani, the firm based in Houston that Mr. Giuliani joined as a name partner two years ago, handles lobbying in the Texas capital for the Citgo Petroleum Corporation of Houston. Citgo is the American subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, the state-owned oil company that Mr. Chávez controls.
The Giuliani campaign responded with a non sequitur that utterly failed to explain why Giuliani’s law firm was lobbying on behalf of Hugo Chavez.
“Mayor Giuliani believes Hugo Chávez is not a friend of the United States and his influence continues to grow because of our increasing reliance on foreign sources of oil,” the statement said.
OK, but why is your firm working for him? I’m sure Republican voters will want to hear a more satisfactory answer than a concession that Giuliani’s firm is working for someone who “is not a friend of the United States.”
This is an issue that will likely matter more to Republican primary voters and Giuliani’s opponents than it does to me. I’m not particularly offended by an American law firm working for a Venezuelan oil company. But Chavez is non-Muslim Public Enemy #1 for the Bedwetter Caucus and has been turned into a bogeyman by Bush and Limbaugh. I expect Giuliani to experience blowback from this. I’ll let you know if I shed any tears.
Disco Rudy image courtesy of Gen. JC Christian
Technorati Tags: Hugo Chavez, Rudy Giuliani
4 Responses to “Disco Rudy: Hugo Chavez Edition”
YAWN you mean the firm that had contracts with citgo long before giuliani ever joined. another non-story that has nothing to do with the next president, and yet another lame attempt to smear the most qualified candidate in the field.
One of my friend’s father is a big houston real estate man. He told me that joining that law firm mad Giuliani one of their own. He’s maneuvered Texas business behind his campain. That’s a lot of donations.
Something to say?
YAWN that firm had contracts with citgo long before giuliani came on board, trying to tie giuliani to chavez because of that might be the most pathetic attack yet for an increasingly pathetic website.
Left by matt
March 14, 2007 at 11:28pm