Was Rudy Giuliani drunk on election night? Maybe so — but that's not why he's dangerous
SalonThe notion that an "apparently inebriated" Rudy Giuliani gave Donald Trump a decisive reason to ignore other advisers and declare victory on election night 2020 has been hyped ever since House select committee vice-chair Liz Cheney mentioned it last week during a hearing on the Jan. 6 insurrection. But as I showed in the New Republic last week and will now amplify here, Cheney and the committee's many witnesses, as well as some terrific journalism from the past 20 years, have demonstrated that Giuliani and Trump were working together long before 2020 — with more than a little "help" from millions of us — to turn the rule of law into a shield and sword for their distortions of the rule of law itself. Even now, Giuliani's wild charges about a "rigged" 2020 election — one that he himself has tried to rig retroactively — still grip millions of Americans. All this has gone on in the face of terrific investigative journalism that must be credited for holding the line against Giuliani and Trump: "A Tale of Two Giulianis" by Michael Shnayerson for Vanity Fair in 2008; "Giuliani's Love for His Country is Equal to the Money He Makes," by Tim Shorrock for The Nation in 2015; a magnificent 2019 New York Times profile by the late Jim Dwyer and colleagues; "What Happened to America's Mayor?" The first discovery, a 1993 "vulnerabilities" report on Giuliani's campaign weaknesses that he'd commissioned for his second run for mayor that year, is summarized in Barrett's book "Rudy!"