The last time I was forced to think about the cursed nexus of "Rudy Giuliani" and "major motion pictures," it was when the former New York City mayor turned deranged fartist and presidential errand boy was filmed maybe-kinda-sorta sticking his hand down his pants in 2020's Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. As it turns out, Rudy's cinematic vision extended far beyond a brief — if inadvertent — stint in a Sacha Baron Cohen comedy. In fact, he evidently fancied himself something of an auteur. And much like most things Giuliani touches these days, his abortive foray into filmmaking has reportedly netted him a big fat bunch of legal trouble.
As far back as February of last year, Giuliani had reportedly been looking to finance an explosive documentary exposé delving into the alleged Hunter Biden-Ukraine "scandal" that had already landed his boss and delinquent benefactor a second impeachment trial. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film — for which Giuliani apparently was trying to raise around $10 million — went nowhere. And while Giuliani wasn't named as a primary partner in the SeeView Media company that was incorporated to create the project; documents obtained by Mother Jones reveal that he was, it seems, the main engine behind the attempted production, with one SeeView partner telling the magazine that "the mayor is the knowledge base."
That, evidently, poses something of a problem for Giuliani these days, with a report — again from Mother Jones — indicating that the FBI is looking into Giuliani's role in the project as part of their broader investigation into whether the former mayor was involved in illegal lobbying work on behalf of Ukraine. Per MJ, Giuliani was paid at least $200k by the film's erstwhile producer, George Dickson III, in exchange for which he would both appear in the project and leverage his personal brand to help raise money for the production. Dickson's home was raided by federal investigators this past spring, and according to people he spoke with, the FBI had made special note of asking him about the film.
All told, Mother Jones estimates Giuliani and co raised around a million bucks for the film, which ended up yielding just a few minutes of mediocre footage. “They couldn’t get their shit together,” Matthew Galvin, a video producer hired to help with it, told MJ. “They were always distracted.”
“The thing I took away from it was, ‘Jesus, these guys are morons.'" he added.
Morons or not, the FBI's apparent interest in the film, its finances, and those involved in its disastrous production is more bad news for Giuliani who — in addition to being under alleged federal investigation — has been suspended from practicing law and faces a $1.3 billion lawsuit over his role in trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Bummer!
