Giuliani Billed Taxpayers For Trips To See Mistress

As New York mayor Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani hid his extramarital affair by charging tens of thousands of dollars in travel and security expenses—to visit his mistress–to obscure city agencies and excluding the trips from his official city schedule.

From 1999 to 2001 Giuliani charged taxpayers for extra travel and security to visit his mistress, Judith Nathan, at her Southampton apartment. Giuliani eventually divorced his second wife and married Nathan, but he has always insisted that the lengthy affair had no effect on his duties as mayor.

Yet he went out of his way to cover it up, concealing the romantic jaunts to the Hamptons from official records while still billing the public for the costly trips. Taxpayers funded Giuliani’s police details, gas and fancy lodging over three summers to a tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

To avoid getting caught, Giuliani billed the personal travel and security expenses to various city agencies that would otherwise have nothing to do with mayoral costs. They include agencies responsible for aiding the disabled, regulating loft apartments and providing attorneys for the poor.

When Giuliani’s publicly-funded escapades were exposed earlier this week, his camp refused to comment but a day later the presidential candidate was pressed on live television during the GOP debate in St. Petersburg Florida. Predictably, he calmly denied any wrongdoing and said he needed a 24-hour security detail as mayor but had nothing to do with the handling of records.