Paul Kiel is doing more digging on the work Rudy did, especially for Hank Asher’s database company, Seisint.
Remember that Rudy’s line for some time now, years actually, has been that he never lobbied. Hence, no need to register as a lobbyist, which would trigger reporting requirements like client and fee disclosure.
So what are we to make of this?
In January of 2003, just a month after Seisint hired Giuliani, Asher gave a presentation to Vice President Dick Cheney, FBI director Robert Mueller, Homeland Security director Tom Ridge, and Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on MATRIX, according to documents obtained by the ACLU back in 2004
That’s an account first reported by Mother Jones three years ago.
You could (a) believe that a former drug runner from Florida just happens to have the ear of the Vice President and other top level officials; or (b) assume that Rudy’s name got Asher into places where he could hawk his product that otherwise he never would have been able to go.
Or as a Seisint shareholder told Time, after Rudy came on board “the doors were wide open. It was almost a flood of business opportunities.”
But no lobbying.
