Early in the scrum of the 2016 presidential campaign, political strategist Rick Wilson bumped into an old boss and strongly advised him not to cast his lot with Donald Trump. No good would come of it.
“Even if he wins, he’s going to destroy you,” Wilson remembered telling Rudy Giuliani. “This guy’s going to humiliate you.”
Wilson recalled being dismissed as a provincial Floridian unable to understand the bond between two New Yorkers — outer-borough strivers who walked the Manhattan streets with proprietary airs and were now within grasp of once-unimaginable power.
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“He’s going to take care of me,” Wilson said Giuliani would tell those around him. A Cabinet post, probably. Maybe secretary of state.
Never happened. Instead, Giuliani became Trump’s secretary of aggression and blind allegiance: his attack dog, legal adviser, unindicted co-conspirator — and now, co-defendant in a criminal conspiracy case.
The two friends from New York, along with 17 others, were indicted Monday in Georgia in a broad racketeering case centered on the sobering charge that they illegally plotted to overturn the 2020 presidential election in favor of its loser, Trump. Adding to the ignominy for Giuliani, 79, is that he was once an innovative prosecutor who specialized in federal racketeering cases.
“I think it’s going to be scary for him,” said Wilson, a former Republican who worked as an adviser to Giuliani a quarter-century ago and is a...
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