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AFormer New York City mayor reveals voter suppression tactics from 1993 election to Steve Bannon and Kari Lake
Giuliani admits using ‘dirty trick’ to suppress Hispanic vote in mayoral race
Former New York City mayor reveals voter suppression tactics from 1993 election to Steve Bannon and Kari Lake
Sat 29 Apr 2023 03.00 EDT
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has admitted to a “dirty trick” that his campaign used to suppress the Hispanic vote during the city’s 1993 mayoral race.
On Tuesday, Giuliani revealed his voter suppression tactics to the far-right Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon and Arizona’s defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake during a discussion on his America’s Mayor Live program.
In the conversation, Giuliani – who was central to Trump’s efforts to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election – lamented that he had been “cheated” during the 1989 mayoral race in which he lost before explaining his 1993 campaign strategy, saying: “I’ll tell you one little dirty trick,” to which Lake replied: “We need dirty tricks!”
“A dirty trick in New York City? I’m so shocked,” Bannon sarcastically responded.
Giuliani then interrupted the former Trump adviser, saying: “No, played by Republicans!”
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“Republicans don’t do dirty
tricks,” Bannon said before Giuliani enthusiastically said: “How about
this one?” Bannon replied: “Okay give it to me.”Giuliani explained that he spent $2m to set up a so-called Voter Integrity Committee which was headed by Randy Levine, current president of the New York Yankees baseball team, and John Sweeney, a former New York Republican congressman.
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“So they went through East Harlem, which is all Hispanic, and they gave out little cards, and the card said: ‘If you come to vote, make sure you have your green card because INS are picking up illegals.’ So they spread it all over the Hispanic …” said Giuliani, referring to the now defunct US Immigration and Naturalization Service before trailing off.
“Oh my gosh,” Lake replied as she raised her eyebrows. . ."
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Rudy Giuliani Admits To ‘Dirty Trick’ That Suppressed Hispanic Vote In NYC Mayor’s Race
During a podcast with former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani admitted to using a “dirty trick” that aimed to suppress Hispanic voters in New York City during his 1993 mayoral campaign.
Bannon and Lake laughed along awkwardly as Giuliani described the tactic, which he said spurred a Justice Department investigation and would likely be subject to prosecution today.
The discussion occurred on Giuliani’s “America’s Mayor Live” program on Tuesday night. (Video below.)
After complaining, as he has for years, that he’d been “cheated” when he lost New York City’s 1989 mayoral race, Giuliani recalled spending $2 million on a “Voter Integrity Committee” for his next campaign in 1993. He ultimately beat then-incumbent Mayor David Dinkins by around 53,000 votes.
When Giuliani first raised the scheme, Bannon sarcastically replied, “A dirty trick in New York City? I’m so shocked.”
Giuliani enthusiastically cut him off. “No, played by Republicans!” he said before explaining more.
“Republicans don’t do dirty tricks,” Bannon protested before Giuliani continued, “Well, how about this one?”
“So they went through East Harlem, which is all Hispanic, and they gave out little cards, and the card said, ‘If you come to vote, make sure you have your green card because INS are picking up illegals.’ So they spread it all over the Hispanic...” Giuliani trailed off after Lake exclaimed, “Oh my gosh.”
INS, or the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, was the immigration enforcement agency precursor to various agencies now housed within the Department of Homeland Security.
Giuliani then described how he’d heard from his attorney that the Justice Department, then run by Attorney General Janet Reno, was investigating the scheme for potential civil rights violations.
Giuliani said he told his lawyer, Dennison Young, not to worry because “What civil rights do we violate? They don’t have civil rights! All we did is prevent people who can’t vote from voting. Maybe we tricked them, but tricking is not a crime.”
Nowadays, the former Trump lawyer and New York City mayor acknowledged, he might face prosecution for the suppression tactic. “And that’s the way we kept down the Hispanic vote,” he concluded.
At that point, Lake butted in to clarify: “Not the legal vote, the illegal vote.”
“Of course!” Giuliani replied. “The Hispanic illegal vote, which takes away the Hispanic legal vote.”
Giuliani said Randy Levine, now president of the Yankees, and John Sweeney, a former U.S. congressman, led his “Voter Integrity Committee.”
Sweeney called Giuliani’s claims “nonsense” and said he and Levine ran a “legitimate” operation.
Levine, in a phone call Thursday, acknowledged that he and Sweeney ran Giuliani’s voter integrity team, describing it as focused on “getting poll watchers and attorneys when there was a dispute.”
However, he said, he had “no knowledge” of the scheme Giuliani described on the podcast and that the voter integrity unit had nothing to do with it.
“My only knowledge was what was in the news back then and shortly after 1993,” Levine said. “I was never contacted by the Justice Department on this investigation because it was clear it did not come out of our operation.”
News reports and a government press release from the time roughly line up with Giuliani’s claims.
The New York Times, announcing Giuliani’s election win, noted that Dinkins had called a noon news conference on Election Day to accuse his opponent of “voter intimidation and dirty tricks,” including the charge that pro-Dinkins posters in English and Spanish were put up in Washington Heights and the Bronx. According to the article, the posters “suggested that illegal immigrants would be arrested at the polls and deported if they tried to vote.”
Giuliani said at the time the allegation had “nothing to do with my campaign,” the Times reported.
New York City Mayor David Dinkins gives his concession speech on Nov. 3, 1993, after narrowly losing to Rudy Giuliani.
A press release from that Election Day from James P. Turner, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration Justice Department, said the department was aware of “posters … placed throughout New York City misinforming voters about the role of Federal officials in today’s elections.”
The release encouraged voters to ignore the posters and stressed that no immigration officials were at polling places and that federal observers “are not there to enforce immigration laws,” but rather, to protect the rights of minority voters. The release also stated that the department would be investigating the posters and “allegations that individuals are intimidating and harassing voters at polling places.”
A few days after Election Day, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department was probing complaints about efforts to suppress the vote in Democratic-leaning minority neighborhoods in New York City.
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