Judith Nathan

In case you missed it, here’s Rudy Giuliani explaining to Tim Russert yesterday why Judith Nathan had taxpayer-funded security before their relationship went public.

Over the weekend, the Rudy Giuliani billing scandal that has been dubbed both the "Shag Fund" and Judygate played on, with both national and local press seizing on angles to further the story.

The New York Post reported that, in addition to the mayor himself, one of Giuliani's top aides also spent at least one summer night in the Hamptons on the city's dime, while the Daily News added that, in addition to chauffeuring Judith Nathan around, the N.Y.P.D. apparently took her to visit her parents in Pennsylvania, and occasionally even walked her dog. According to CBS, her family got to ride around with the N.Y.P.D. as well.

ABC News reported that Ray Kelly doesn't think Giuliani's story adds up and Michael Bloomberg's girlfriend says she has never had her own security detail. David Seifman calculated that the breakup of Rudy's marriage to Donna Hanover also cost the city a whole bunch of money.

In commentary, Michael Goodwin wrote that Giuliani's personal life is his last hurdle to the presidency, Josh Marshall explained why, contrary to intuition, Giuliani isn't guilty like Alan Hevesi, and Gail Collins just thinks, "Rudy is one of those people who doesn’t handle power well."

More after the jump.  read more »

Mike Huckabee's value to Rudy Giuliani has been well-documented. But the relationship is a two-way street - something Mr. Huckabee made clear on national television on Sunday.

Toward the end of a 20-minute interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week," Mr. Huckabee was essentially given a free shot at Mr. Giuliani, asked to assess the Rudy's claim that the accounting procedures that resulted in security expenses for trips with his then-paramour being billed to the city of New York while he was mayor had been "perfectly appropriate."

Mr. Huckabee could easily have piled on, either overtly or with subtlety, but instead he offered a rather rousing defense of Mr. Giuliani, framing the story as the product of overzealous, context-ignorant reporting.

"I thought it was a cheap-shot at Rudy," Mr. Huckabee declared. "There's no point in trying to dig through what his security detail did, unless they can specifically say that he personally ordered something.  read more »

Ben reports that the Giuliani team is insisting all security expenses were perfectly appropriate, instead of explaining why they were billed to obscure city agencies.

Bernie Kerik jumped to his former boss's defense. (The Giuliani campaign, no doubt, will be delighted.)  read more »

Here is Judith Giuliani speaking at a fund-raiser for the Laniado Hospital in Netanya, Israel.

The event took place on Sunday and the picture was sent over by the Giuliani campaign, showing not only that is she not a distraction to her husband's presidential ambitions (as some recent stories may have suggested) but that she is a useful authority on medical issues a draw in her own right. Or at least, that's the idea.

It's still unclear what damage will result from today's revelation that Rudy Giuliani had been briefed about some of Bernard Kerik's connections to a suspicious construction company before the former mayor championed his former security guard as secretary of Homeland Security. Giuliani has in large part based his run on the perception that he is a man of impeccable integrity and judgment. The Kerik story seems to undercut that.

But Giuliani has proved extremely resilient. He has so far managed to maintain high poll numbers despite a barrage of stories about his rather liberal stance on social issues and his soap opera personal life, which took another twist last week when it was revealed that his third wide, Judith Nathan, had a previously unknown first marriage, making Rudy her third husband.

But some rivals of Giuliani think that the more potent weapon against him is to point out Rudy's endorsement of liberal Mario Cuomo as proof that he is not the steadfast fiscal conservative he claims to be. To that end, a craftily edited YouTube clip recently appeared, raising questions about Rudy's commitment to cutting taxes. Rudy's defenders were quick to point out the clip's innacuracy. But it nevertheless shows how sensitive they are to that line of attack. --Jason Horowitz

As anyone who has studied Hollywood knows, the son-in-law rises, the assistant despises.  read more »

Sure, Judith Nathan started out as a lowly interloper, an East Side Camilla Parker-Bowles, making th  read more »

Sure, Judith Nathan started out as a lowly interloper, an East Side Camilla Parker-Bowles, making th  read more »

According to a guest at the May 24 wedding of former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Judith Nathan, 17-ye  read more »

The latest development, or maybe the last straw, in New York's soap opera, Mayor , is that the daugh  read more »

The latest development, or maybe the last straw, in New York's soap opera, Mayor , is that the daugh  read more »

It was early in the morning on May 27, the day before Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's 57th birthday, and Mr  read more »

President George Bush's tax cut of $1.3 trillion over 10years has left many Americans feeling queasy  read more »

Can Judith Nathan, First Girlfriend, hang around the Mayor's mansion with his family, or is she de t  read more »

The media spent much of the first week of May reporting on various new versions of Mayor Rudolph Giu  read more »