Bernard Kerik, who served as the commissioner of the New York Police Department, died Thursday in Manhattan.
Kerik was appointed as NYPD commissioner by Mayor Rudy Giuliani in August 2000. The appointment was controversial at the time due to Kerik’s perceived rapid promotion through the NYPD and lack of a college degree.
Kerik became famous nationwide due to his response to 9/11 as police commissioner. During the attacks, Kerik, as well as Giuliani and their staffs were showered by debris and trapped in a nearby building temporarily.
In 2003, during the Iraq War, President George W. Bush appointed Kerik the acting interior minister for Iraq’s provisional authority.
In 2004, Kerik was briefly nominated by Bush to serve as the second secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, but withdrew his name after a week due to his earlier hiring of an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper.
Kerik’s reputation was further damaged in 2009 when he pled guilty to two counts of tax fraud, five counts of making false statements to the federal government during vetting, and one count of making a false statement on a loan application. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2010, but was released in 2013 and served an additional five months of home confinement.
President Donald Trump pardoned Kerik in early 2020.
Kerik worked again for Giuliani in the aftermath of the 2020 election on post-election litigation. Kerik was one of 34 unindicted co-conspirators in Fani Willis’s campaign against Trump and various Trump-associates.
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