Giuliani, Citgo Gas and Chavez
March 14, 2007
There's story out there today about how Rudy Giuliani's law firm lobbies for Citgo Petrolueum. Well, Citgo is a subsidiary of Venezuela's national oil company. And Venezuela is run by Hugo Chavez, the guy that called President Bush a "madman" and a "devil."( The Democrats in the Senate have come close to saying that too!) Read the story here.
Here's part of the article:
"Bracewell & Giuliani registered to lobby for Citgo in Texas on April 26, 2005, less than a month after Giuliani joined the firm and became a name partner, state records show.Citgo renewed the contract in 2006 and 2007 and pays the firm $5,000 a month to track legislation.Giuliani doesn't lobby, the firm says.Patrick Oxford, a managing partner at Bracewell & Giuliani, said Giuliani has no dealings with the Venezuelan-owned oil company. "He has not seen hide nor hair of Citgo," Oxford said. Giuliani's campaign released a statement that didn't address written questions asking whether he knew his firm did business with Citgo and whether he considered it appropriate.The e-mailed statement discussed his views on Chavez and energy policy. "Mayor Giuliani has been clear and consistent - Hugo Chavez is no friend of the United States," campaign spokeswoman Katie Levinson said in the statement. "Chief among the reasons Chavez has so much influence around the world is our ongoing dependence on foreign oil."
Giuliani has hurdles in front of him. It doesn't seem to me that this specific charge will stick but Giuliani's opponents will try to make the case that Giuliani has a lot of skeletons in his closet. You get the sense that people out to take Rudy down are going to do a political version of "death by a thousand paper cuts"
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