critics say Giuliani himself has a history of mishandling government documents - not classified material, but records the public has the right to access.
Before leaving office, Giuliani did something unprecedented. He hired a moving company to take 2,000 boxes of his mayoral papers to a Queens warehouse, and then to a private archivist, before transferring them to the city.
"He's not a man who's known for trying to be transparent about what he's doing," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. Back then, Giuliani said the city could not properly organize the papers.
Is that why there is only one document in the NYC archives on Giuliani removing Yasar Arafat from an event at Lincoln Center?
We found only a letter, written by an aide who said Arafat's removal was based on principle...not politics."
But because of the way Giuliani handled his papers, critics say the public will never know if other records that could shed light on the incident were destroyed.
"The fact that Giuliani shipped his papers out will put them under a cloud forever," Donna Lieberman said.
But could Rudy be more dangerous in another position? Such as Director of National Intelligence, for which he's also been rumored to be a candidate? Or is Trump going to abolish the office altogether, and through executive orders and a Republican Congress, get legislation passed to create a new cabinet position for Rudy?
Reuters reports Trump's transition team hasn't even begun to reading the briefing books on the DNI, NSA and Counterterrorism Center.
Only one member of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is dealing with the CIA and the 16 other offices and agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, four U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Geoffrey Kahn, a former House intelligence committee staffer, is the only person named so far to Trump's intelligence community "landing team," they said. As a result, said one senior career intelligence officer, briefing books prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the National Counterterrorism Center, and 13 other agencies and organizations are "waiting for someone to read them."
How big are these agencies?
The intelligence community has some 200,000 employees and contractors and an annual budget of more than $70 billion. It collects and analyzes information on a vast array of subjects, from national security threats such as terrorism and climate change to global conflicts and the foreign, defense and trade policies of foreign governments.
Trump's declining to receive daily classified debriefings as offered by the current administration has many puzzled. (He's delegated them to Mike Pence.) In my view, his comments about U.S. intelligence show he has an extreme learning deficit on the topic.
After his first classified briefing as the Republican presidential candidate, Trump said he "didn't learn anything" that prompted him to rethink his view about how to fight Islamic State. On the other hand, he said, "When they call it intelligence, it's there for a reason."On other occasions, he has contradicted or ignored what his briefers told him.
After being briefed that U.S. intelligence had concluded that the Russian government was behind the hacking of U.S. political institutions, he said that "maybe there is no hacking" or than maybe it was China or "somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds."
Rudy in any position that involves privacy or police would be a serious mistake. What if Trump names him as Director of Homeland Security? Here's who is currently mentioned as being in the running. I think even an incompetent like Trump wouldn't nominate Sheriff David Clarke. The Senate would not dare confirm him. There would be riots everywhere. I don't think he could even be confirmed as Director of ICE.
Trump will obviously reward Giuliani for his manic and deranged support of Trump with some plum of an assignment. He will be a disaster in any cabinet position, but perhaps less damaging as Secretary of State than in a position that gave him any sort of power here at home, especially one involving law enforcement or civil liberties. At least he'd be traveling all the time and except for press releases by the State Department, we won't hear much about him, until Trump gets us into a full-fledged war.
