The President’s Man
I was the chief counsel to the New Jersey governor Jon Corzine from 2006 to 2008, so I was particularly interested to read Jeffrey Toobin’s article about Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and his relationship with Donald Trump (“Beating the Drum,” September 10th). Toobin fails to convey how far Giuliani’s behavior as Trump’s personal lawyer deviates from traditional legal norms and from the canons of legal ethics. It may be that, as Toobin notes, Giuliani concluded that the core aim of his advocacy for the President should be to undermine public support for the special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. On that count, he has succeeded to some degree. However, what makes Giuliani different from the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or any of Trump’s other spokespeople, is that he is serving as a legal adviser to the President of the United States. Giuliani is entitled to put on a vigorous defense, but he is also bound by the ethical standards that apply to all lawyers. He has violated these ethics, and, as a result, he has not only tarnished his legacy as a leader but also lost his way as a lawyer.
Ken Zimmerman
Glen Ridge, N.J.
Toobin misses the mark when he calls Giuliani President Trump’s Roy Cohn. Toobin describes Cohn as “Trump’s mentor” and “the notorious sidekick to Joseph McCarthy who, as a lawyer in New York, became a legendary brawler and used the media to bash adversaries.” Cohn began his career by helping Senator McCarthy persecute innocent Americans and ended it as a lawyer defending mobsters—not to fill a legal niche but because few others sought his services. There was nothing redeemable about the man.
Giuliani, in contrast, made his name by prosecuting mobsters and people accused of insider trading. In doing so, he put what Toobin calls his “naked aggression and thirst for attention” to good use. Giuliani is now destroying whatever respectability he had by defending President Trump—on Trump’s terms and in Trump’s style. However graceless a character Giuliani has always been, and whatever the root of his current antics, his fall has a whiff of tragedy to it. If there is an overlap between Cohn and Giuliani, other than their service to Trump, it is that each, in his own way, has discredited his profession, demeaned our democratic process, and damaged the lives of many people.
Annlinn Kruger
Bar Harbor, Maine
Toobin is right to point out how Giuliani’s bullying behavior as a federal prosecutor presaged his current work for Trump. (Toobin mentions Giuliani’s practice of so-called perp walking, “marching white-collar criminals through the financial district, often in front of reporters who had been alerted in advance.” He did this even for people not charged with crimes.) Still, while Giuliani was a prosecutor, he was acting within, and in support of, the Department of Justice. Now he is degrading that office by attempting to litigate Trump’s legal problems through the court of public opinion. Giuliani’s current performance—down to his grin, which is more of a grimace than a smile—is painful to watch. One wonders what the young Giuliani, a rising star prosecutor going after the Mob, would have to say about his actions today.
Mary H. Hall
South Hadley, Mass.
