The vultures are already circling.
The New York Daily News reports today that Rudy Giuliani is positioning his international law firm to get a stake in the proposed $700-billion bailout of Wall Street.
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With a rescue deal still being hammered out in Washington, the former presidential candidate and New York mayor announced Thursday that Bracewell & Giuliani had put together a high-powered task force to assist financial institutions in selling toxic assets to the federal government.
“Our team of former government officials and experienced attorneys in the fields of legislation, enforcement and finance are equipped to guide institutions in this quickly evolving and complex environment,” Giuliani said in a press release.
Giuliani is not the only one preparing his firm to advise companies on the bailout. But he has been a high-profile surrogate for GOP presidential nominee John McCain. The fact that McCain has not signed off on the proposed bailout does not seem to have given the former mayor any pause before pursuing a new business opportunity.
Members of Bracewell & Giuliani’s task force will include several partners with connections both to the financial world, the U.S. Treasury Department and to the George W. Bush White House, among them:
- Robert L. Clarke, a former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency under the late Ronald Reagan, who also was a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Resolution Trust Corporation.
- Marc Mukasey, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the son of U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a close friend of Giuliani’s.
- John A. Brunjes, a member of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association and a former assistant attorney general for the state of Connecticut.
- Patrick C. Oxford, a longtime fundraiser for George W. Bush, who had served as a member of the board of regents for the University of Texas during Bush’s tenure as Texas governor.
- Evan D. Flaschen, a leading bankruptcy attorney who has represented some of the world’s largest institutional investors.