Inside Kerik's Fall

In calculating his odds of getting confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik and his advisers had reckoned they could handle the issue of Kerik's reputation for occasional lapses of judgment in personal matters. Or that the smell of some conflict-of-interest issues still clung to him. "Everything seemed pretty normal, at least by Washington or New York standards," his mentor and boss, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, told TIME. "It is never pleasant. You deal with it." But they hadn't counted on the nanny. Kerik's disclosure, a week after President George W. Bush had announced...

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