The comprehensive indictment filed this week in Georgia against former US President Donald Trump and 18 other people, also tells the story of Rudy Giuliani's incredible downfall: who at his peak was dubbed "America's Mayor" on the cover of Time magazine and was also named the magazine's Person of the Year in 2001, and who is now accused of a crime against the US. And in a way that is uncharacteristic of him, the prosecution is using against him the law that made him a star.
Read more:
In the 1980s, as a senior federal prosecutor in New York, Giuliani took an obscure law that dealt with extortion, and used it to bring down, one by one, mafia bosses and corrupt politicians. RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) has since become a myth, and a way to fight organized crime across the US. Now, at the age of 79, Giuliani is part of an indictment filed in Georgia using the RICO Act.
Giuliani is going through the extraordinary process of brand destruction. His success as a federal prosecutor in dealing with white-collar crime alongside his aggressive (and controversial) cleanup of homeless from New York's streets led him in the 1990s to a rare two-term tenure as mayor of New York City as a Republican. Later, his methods of action against crime were copied throughout the US and his conduct after the September 11 attacks made him the most popular person in America.
It is not entirely clear why Giuliani decided in 2016 to stick with Donald Trump, although his critics – and there have always been many of them - claim that this is no surprise. What is surprising is the fact that at no point did Giuliani think of getting off this train. He was Trump's emissary for attempts to extort an investigation against Joe Biden from Ukraine in exchange for economic and military aid, and was a leading figure in the effort to reverse the results of the 2020 election.
2 View gallery
Rudy Giuliani at the height of his popularity, on the cover of Time Magazine
(Time Magazine)
In the new indictment in Georgia, Giuliani is mentioned more than 50 times and is charged with 13 counts. "He rose to prominence as the only one who could bring down organized crime and make the world safe," Hank Sheinkopf, a well-known veteran political consultant in New York, told the Wall Street Journal. "Now he is going down the drain as someone who undermines democracy."