Conflict-of-interest questions dog Giuliani

President-elect Donald Trump’s likely pick for secretary of State, Rudy Giuliani, faces potential conflicts of interest should he be appointed to the position.

{mosads}The former New York City mayor has been paid millions as a lawyer and consultant for foreign governments, according to a Politico report. The outlet notes that such ties — some with clients who were at odds with U.S. foreign policy — were considered a major issue during Giuliani’s presidential run in the 2008 cycle.

He collected millions working for foreign governments including Qatar and Venezuela, and he made paid speeches to help an exiled Iranian political party be removed from terror lists.

He also advised a group with ties to the Keystone XL pipeline, Politico said.

The International Business Times noted he represented Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin, and worked for law firms that represented the chewing tobacco lobby and the casino industry. 

He joined the Bracewell law firm in Houston — a longtime lobbyist for the government of Saudi Arabia — the paper added.

Financial disclosure forms from his presidential bid show he earned more than $4 million from his security consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, in 2006, and made another $1.2 million from his work at Bracewell, the New York Daily News reported at the time.  

While Giuliani never personally registered as a lobbyist, many of his subsidiaries did just that under his name.

According to Politico, Bracewell and Giuliani lobbied at the federal level for Southern Company, Duke Energy, Energy Future Holdings, Arch Coal, Chesapeake Energy and NuStar Energy. Another law firm Giuliani joined in 2005 lobbied for Citgo, a U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company.

These ties could be perceived as conflicts of interest should Trump nominate Giuliani to be secretary of State, especially given that Trump has promised to rid the White House of lobbyists and to “drain the swamp” of Washington insiders.

Giuliani has been an outspoken supporter of Trump, often making appearances as a surrogate on the campaign trail.

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is reportedly also considered a leading contender for head of the State Department. Bolton is known for his hawkish foreign policy and penned an op-ed last year calling for the U.S. to bomb Iran to stop its nuclear program.