The almost comical corruption of Rudy Giuliani

The indictment of Giuliani's associates is both a telling window into the rot at the top of the American elite and extremely funny

Rudy Giuliani.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Sara D. Davis/Getty Images, fominox/iStock, Asya_mix/iStock, -slav-/iStock)

The American ruling class is an appalling mass of corruption, like some hellish combination of scrofula, gangrene, and shingles. And one particularly pestilential boil on the national hindquarters is Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, bag man, and "guy who admits to crimes on cable news."

We learned Friday that two of Giuliani's close associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were trying to flee the country only to be arrested by federal prosecutors. These Soviet-born Americans have allegedly been conducting a conspiracy to evade campaign finance regulation, according to a recently-unsealed indictment. They have also been key figures in Giuliani's attempt to get Ukraine to investigate the Biden family.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.