Rudy Giuliani Fast Facts

Here is a look at the life of Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City.

Birth date: May 28, 1944

Birth place: Brooklyn, New York

Birth name: Rudolph William Louis Giuliani

Father: Harold Giuliani, tavern owner

Mother: Helen (D’Avanzo) Giuliani, secretary

Marriages: Judith Nathan (May 24, 2003-2019, divorced); Donna Hanover (April 15, 1984-July 10, 2002, divorced); Regina Peruggi (October 26, 1968-1982, annulled)

Children: with Donna Hanover: Caroline and Andrew

Education: Manhattan College, B.A., 1965; New York University Law School, J.D., 1968 (magna cum laude)

Religion: Roman Catholic

Widely credited with New York’s revitalization during the 1990s, when crime dropped significantly and the economy boomed.

As mayor, Giuliani was pro-gay rights, pro-gun control and pro-abortion rights.

After the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani was widely praised for his response to the disaster.

His first marriage, to Regina Peruggi, was annulled after 14 years when Giuliani discovered he and his wife were second cousins.

His father, Harold Giuliani, served time in prison for armed robbery in the 1930s.

1968-1970 – After graduating from law school, Giuliani clerks for Southern District of New York Judge Lloyd MacMahon.

1970 – Joins the office of the US Attorney.

1975-1977 – Moves to Washington, DC, after being named associate deputy attorney general and chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Harold Tyler.

1977-1981 – Returns to New York and joins the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler.

1981-1983 – Serves as associate attorney general, the third-highest position in the US Department of Justice.

1983-1989 – US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. During this time, Giuliani gains national prominence for prosecuting Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and various mafia figures.

1989 – Giuliani resigns as US attorney and makes his first run for mayor of New York. He loses to David Dinkins in a close race.

1993 – Becomes the first Republican mayor of New York in 20 years, after defeating Dinkins.

January 1, 1994-December 31, 2001 – Mayor of New York.

1997 – Is reelected mayor by a wide margin, carrying four of New York’s five boroughs.

April 27, 2000 – Discloses that he is suffering from prostate cancer.

May 19, 2000 – Announces that he is dropping out of the race for the US Senate to focus on cancer treatment.

2001 – Is named Time’s Person of the Year.

October 15, 2001 – Is appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

2002 – His book, “Leadership,” is published.

January 2002 – Leaves the mayor’s office and founds Giuliani Partners, a security consulting firm.

March 8, 2002 – Receives the Ronald Reagan Presidential Freedom Award from Nancy Reagan.

August 30, 2004 – Delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in New York and later campaigns for President George W. Bush’s reelection.

March 2005 – Joins the Texas law firm of Bracewell & Patterson as a partner. The firm is then renamed Bracewell & Giuliani.

2006 – Bush appoints Giuliani to lead the delegation to Turin, Italy, for the closing ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics.

February 5, 2007 – Files a statement of candidacy with the FEC for the 2008 presidential election.

January 30, 2008 – Drops out of the 2008 presidential election and endorses John McCain.

May 23, 2009 – Gets into an argument with publisher and filmmaker John McCluskey, who is later arrested for allegedly threatening to punch Giuliani.

January 19, 2016 – International law firm Greenberg Traurig says Giuliani is joining the company as global chair of its cybersecurity, privacy and crisis management practice and as senior adviser to CEO Richard A. Rosenbaum.

January 12, 2017 – President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team announces that Giuliani will join them as an adviser “concerning private sector cybersecurity problems and emerging solutions developing in the private sector.”

April 19, 2018 – Joins Trump’s personal legal team.

May 10, 2018 – Announces he has resigned from his law firm, Greenberg Traurig, in order to concentrate on his legal work for Trump during the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

January 16, 2019 – In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Giuliani says that he never denied Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign, only that the president himself was not involved in collusion.

May 9, 2019 – The New York Times publishes a report in which Giuliani says that he plans to travel to Ukraine to look into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who worked for a gas company called Burisma Holdings that was owned by an oligarch. Giuliani alleges that in 2016, the vice president improperly pressured Ukraine to oust a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma. Giuliani’s allegation is undermined by a report from Bloomberg, which describes the Burisma investigation as “dormant” in 2016. Giuliani tells the Times it is appropriate for him to investigate Biden even as the former vice president campaigns for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

May 11, 2019 – Giuliani reverses course, saying that he will no longer travel to Ukraine to press the country’s leadership for an investigation into Biden and his son.

September 19, 2019 – Giuliani appears on CNN and says that he asked Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden.

October 9, 2019 – Two of Giuliani’s associates, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas are apprehended by authorities at Dulles International Airport before boarding a flight to Vienna with one-way tickets. The men, who were helping Giuliani research Biden, are indicted on multiple charges including conspiracy, false statements and campaign finance violations. Parnas was Giuliani’s fixer in Ukraine, helping the former mayor connect with current and former officials abroad. Parnas and Fruman funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations from foreign nationals into a Trump-allied super PAC, according to the indictment. The men were also involved in a successful scheme to oust the US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

October 10, 2019 – Giuliani tells The Atlantic that he had planned to travel to Vienna but did not intend to meet with Fruman and Parnas until they all returned from Europe. Separately, Trump says that he didn’t know Parnas and Fruman even though Parnas had posted multiple photos of himself with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump Jr.

October 15, 2019 – US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent testifies that around January 2019, Giuliani requested a visa from the State Department and the White House for former Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin to travel to the United States.

December 7, 2019 – After Giuliani returns from a trip to Ukraine, where he reportedly met with numerous former officials and filmed scenes for a TV show on the One America News Network, Trump announces that his personal lawyer is going to submit a report to Congress and the attorney general about his findings.

December 16, 2019 – The New Yorker publishes an article in which Giuliani is quoted saying the ouster of Yovanovitch was a key part of his effort to dig up dirt on Democrats on Trump’s behalf.

December 23, 2019 – New York magazine publishes an interview with Giuliani in which he accuses Jewish financier George Soros of appointing US ambassadors, employing FBI agents and being an enemy of Israel. Giuliani says his opposition to Soros is not rooted in antisemitism. “Soros is hardly a Jew,” says Giuliani. “I’m more of a Jew than Soros is.”

February 10, 2020 – US Attorney General William Barr confirms that the US Justice Department has been receiving information from Giuliani about his operation in Ukraine.

October 15, 2020 – The Washington Post reports that the White House was warned in 2019 that Giuliani “was being used to feed Russian misinformation” to the president. Citing conversations with four former officials familiar with the matter, the Post says that US intelligence agencies warned the White House that Giuliani “was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence” in which Trump was the intended recipient of the misinformation.

November 14, 2020 – Trump tweets that he has put Giuliani in charge of his campaign’s post-election legal challenges.

December 6, 2020 – Giuliani is admitted to Georgetown University Hospital after testing positive for Covid-19, a source familiar with the matter confirms to CNN. Earlier, Giuliani appeared to confirm his positive diagnosis, hours after it was announced on Twitter by Trump, by tweeting that he’s “getting great care and feeling good.” He leaves the hospital after four days.

January 25, 2021 – Election technology company Dominion Voting Systems files a lawsuit against Giuliani for $1.3 billion over his claims of election fraud.

April 29, 2021 – Federal agents execute a search warrant at Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment and office. Robert Costello, Giuliani’s attorney, says the warrant described an investigation into possible violation of foreign lobbying laws and that it sought communications between Giuliani and people including a former columnist for The Hill, John Solomon.

May 17, 2021 – A letter to the court from Giuliani’s attorneys is unsealed. It argues that federal authorities’ review of material seized from a covert search of Giuliani’s iCloud account in 2019 was illegal and suggested the search warrants executed late last month on his Manhattan home and office were the “fruit of this poisoned tree.”

June 24, 2021 – Giuliani is suspended from practicing law in New York state by an appellate court that found he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about the 2020 election. Later, his law license is also suspended in Washington, DC.

January 18, 2022 – The House select committee investigating the January 6 riot subpoenas Giuliani and three others who pushed various election fraud conspiracies on Trump’s behalf.

February 2, 2022 – Celebrity judges Robin Thicke and Ken Jeong walk off stage after Giuliani unmasked himself as a contestant on “The Masked Singer,” the popular Fox reality show in which contenders perform in full costume until they are eliminated.

June 10, 2022 – The attorney discipline arm of the DC Bar brings a case against Giuliani for pushing unsubstantiated election fraud accusations in a Pennsylvania federal court on behalf of Trump after the 2020 election. The disciplinary office filing, called a charge, further puts Giuliani’s status as a lawyer in jeopardy, as he stands accused of violating Pennsylvania’s Rules of Professional Conduct.

August 17, 2022 – Giuliani appears before a Georgia grand jury that is investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

January 9, 2023 – CNN reports that prosecutors have subpoenaed Giuliani, asking him to turn over records to a federal grand jury as part of an investigation into Trump’s fundraising following the 2020 election.

August 14, 2023 – Is indicted, along with Trump and 17 others, in Georgia, on state charges stemming from their efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 electoral defeat. Later pleads not guilty and waives his right to an arraignment hearing.

August 30, 2023 – A federal judge rules that Giuliani has lost a defamation lawsuit from two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, after he failed to provide information sought in subpoenas. On December 15, 2023, a jury orders Giuliani to pay nearly $150 million to Freeman and Moss. Three days later, Freeman and Moss file another lawsuit against Giuliani, asking a federal judge to permanently prohibit him from lying about them. Giuliani later agrees to never again publicly accuse Freeman and Moss of tampering with votes in the 2020 election.

September 26, 2023 – Hunter Biden files a civil lawsuit against Giuliani and Giuliani’s former attorney, claiming they caused “total annihilation” of his digital privacy and violated federal and state computer privacy laws through their alleged efforts to hack his devices.

October 4, 2023 – Files a defamation lawsuit against Joe Biden for calling him a “Russian pawn.”

December 21, 2023 – Files for bankruptcy in federal court in New York. On July 12, 2024, a judge decides Giuliani is no longer entitled to bankruptcy protection, making it possible for creditors to pursue his assets within days.

May 13, 2024 – Giuliani was suspended from New York City radio station WABC and his talk show canceled after he flagrantly ignored orders not to discuss false 2020 election conspiracy theories, the station’s owner says.

May 21, 2024 – Giuliani and 10 others plead not guilty in an Arizona court to charges of allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

July 2, 2024 – Giuliani is disbarred in the state of New York for his part in President Trump’s election interference efforts in 2020. On September 26, he is disbarred in Washington, DC.