White House knew of Kerik's mob ties before he withdrew for Secretary of DHS.

The indictment that the feds have just brought against Bernard Kerik shows that it was his mob ties that caused him to withdraw his names from consideration for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, not nanny problems. This from TPM Muckraker:

On December 2, 2004, President Bush announced that his pick to replace Tom Ridge as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was Bernard Kerik. On December 10th, a Friday, at 8:30 p.m., Kerik suddenly withdrew his nomination, explaining in a statement that he'd discovered that his former housekeeper and nanny might not be a legal immigrant and that he hadn't paid taxes on her. It was the sole reason given for his withdrawal, both in his statement and in subsequent comments by White House officials.

But Kerik's indictment last Thursday indicates that the White House was dealing with bigger problems: Kerik's ties to the mob.

The centerpiece of the indictment was Kerik's acceptance, from 1999 through 2000, of $255,000 worth of apartment renovations (including a marble rotunda) from executives with Interstate Industrial Corporation, a company with ties to the Gambino crime family. The feds say that Kerik, who was NYC corrections commissioner and then police commissioner during the time in question, worked on Interstate's behalf in return for the money, work that included attempting to convince city investigators that the company was free of mob ties so that it could get city contracts.

Unfortunately for Kerik, the secret of his ties to Interstate began to unravel just about the time of his nomination. On December 2nd, the same day that Bush announced Kerik was his pick, The New York Daily News, which had been digging for six weeks on Kerik's ties to Interstate, sent him a list of questions about those ties.

On December 5th, the indictment alleges, Kerik "made various false and misleading statements about his relationship with [Interstate and it's top executives]" in an email to a White House official (who remains unnamed). It was one of several allegedly false and misleading statements that Kerik is charged in the indictment with making to White House officials. However, unlike the other false statements, which appear from the indictment to involves sins of omission -- like failure to disclose -- the language of the indictment suggests that the December 5th email was an affirmative misrepresentation. In other words, in the thick of the vetting process, the White House was asking Kerik about his ties to Interstate.

Five days later, he announced that he'd uncovered his nanny problem. Two days after that, on December 12th, the Daily News first reported that Kerik's brother and best friend had been hired by Interstate -- on Kerik's recommendation. Kerik had never responded to the list of questions, the paper reported.

So Kerik was taking payoffs from Industrial even as he worked for Giuliani as head of New York City jails and then as Police Commissioner. Also, Industrial could not get New York City contracts because of its mob connections, so Rudy would have known that anyone working for Industrial was mob-connected.

But Kerik wasn't the only Guiliani aide who worked for Industrial. Tom Robbins, investigative reporter for the Village Voice reported December 17, 2004 that Giuliani's former former deputy mayor Randy Mastro, who served as Giuliani's top gun in chasing down mobbed up outfits doing business with the city.

Mastro's hiring came as the construction firm was desperately battling for the right to hold city and state contracts despite allegations of mob dealings made by several oversight agencies—including a business integrity panel that was launched by Mastro when he was still at City Hall.

Interstate was also facing a tough challenge by regulators of New Jersey casinos who said the company should be barred from Atlantic City because it had a long history of conscious involvement with organized-crime figures.

So apparently Mastro's employment by Industrial was legitimate and above board, even though Mastro says he never told his former boss, Rudy, who he was working for. Kerik's was not similarly legitimate.

The New York Times reported March 30, 2007 about the investigation into what Guiliani knew about Kerik's mob connections and when he learned of it.

Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records.

Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony.

Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik’s appointment as the city’s top law enforcement officer. Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary.

In his testimony, given in April 2006, Mr. Giuliani indicated that he must have simply forgotten that he had been briefed on one or more occasions as part of the background investigation of Mr. Kerik before his appointment to the police post.

So the question is whether Giuliani was less than candid in what he claims he knew about Kerik's mob connections, or is it that Rudy has no real concern about whether one of his subordinates has mob connections. But consider this:

Mr. Giuliani, whose private company provides background checks for companies as part of its services, may have to explain his response to the information that was provided to him in 2000.

Is it reasonable to assume that a man who does background investigations for other people would not have done a similar job on Bernie Kerik?

Kerik is a real blot on Giuliani's work. It brings into question his judgment, his honesty in asnwering questions, and his fitness for any executive position.