Today report on possible Kerik indictment included no mention of Giuliani

On the November 8 edition of NBC's Today, national correspondent Natalie Morales reported on the possible indictment of former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik without noting Kerik's connections to Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Morales stated that Kerik "was once nominated to be the head of the Department of Homeland Security," but did not mention that it was Giuliani who urged President Bush to nominate Kerik to the post. As Media Matters for America noted, Giuliani had previously elevated Kerik, his former bodyguard, to New York City corrections commissioner and police commissioner. Following his term as mayor, Giuliani employed Kerik at his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners.

After being nominated for secretary of homeland security in December 2004, Kerik withdrew because, he said, he had failed to make "required tax payments and related filings" for a housekeeper. As Media Matters noted, Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk blog cast doubt at the time on whether it "was the illegal nanny alone that did Kerik in," citing a litany of Kerik's alleged misdeeds, including various lawsuits, allegations of corruption, and potential conflicts of interest.

The possible indictment of Kerik stems from a federal investigation that has reportedly focused in part on his dealings with Interstate Industrial Corp., a construction company suspected of having ties to organized crime. A November 3 New York Times article noted that in 2004, following questions about whether Kerik "had inappropriately lobbied city officials on behalf of Interstate Industrial," Giuliani said, " 'I was not informed of it,' ... when asked if he had been warned about Mr. Kerik's relationship with Interstate before appointing him to the police post in 2000." The Times further reported that in 2006, Giuliani changed his position on whether he had been informed of Kerik's connections to Interstate:

Mr. Giuliani amended that statement last year in testimony to a state grand jury. He acknowledged that the city investigations commissioner, Edward J. Kuriansky, had told him that he had been briefed at least once. The former mayor said, though, that neither he nor any of his aides could recall being briefed about Mr. Kerik's involvement with the company.

But a review of Mr. Kuriansky's diaries, and investigators' notes from a 2004 interview with him, now indicate that such a session indeed took place. What is more, Mr. Kuriansky also recalled briefing one of Mr. Giuliani's closest aides, Dennison Young Jr., about Mr. Kerik's entanglements with the company just days before the police appointment, according to the diaries he compiled at the time and his later recollection to the investigators.

The additional evidence raises questions not only about the precision of Mr. Giuliani's recollection, but also about how a man who proclaims his ability to pick leaders came to overlook a jumble of disturbing information about Mr. Kerik, even as he pushed him for two crucial government positions.

As Media Matters noted, in recent statements regarding the federal probe, Giuliani has again suggested that he had not been aware of Kerik's relationship with the company.

The November 3 Times article also noted that in his autobiography, Kerik described the ritual that accompanied his appointment as deputy correction commissioner and mentioned "how much becoming part of his [Giuliani's] team resembled becoming part of a mafia family":

Mr. Giuliani said he planned to appoint Mr. Kerik as first deputy correction commissioner.

Mr. Kerik, who wrote of this in his autobiography, "The Lost Son," was taken aback; he was a year removed from being a police detective.

"Mayor, I appreciate your confidence in me, I really do," he said. "But I ran a jail. One jail. Rikers is like 10 jails."

Just do it, the mayor replied.

Mr. Kerik followed Mr. Giuliani downstairs to a dimly lighted room. There waited Mr. Giuliani's boyhood chum Peter J. Powers, who was first deputy mayor, and other aides. One by one, they pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek.

"I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled becoming part of a mafia family," Mr. Kerik wrote. "I was being made."

Furthermore, as Media Matters noted, a leaked memo detailing Giuliani's 2008 campaign plans appeared to include Kerik on a list of several potential "prob[lems]" that may be "insurm[ountable]."

From the November 8 edition of NBC's Today:

MORALES: Today, federal prosecutors are asking a grand jury to indict former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on charges of tax fraud and corruption. Kerik was once nominated to be the head of the Department of Homeland Security.