NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Giuliani is accustomed to the mud-slinging that comes with politics.
He experienced his first political hit as a pre-teen when his father, Rudy Giuliani, was mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
“There's probably not anybody in recent memory in politics that's more prepared than I am,” the younger Giuliani said. “I had a death threat against me when I was 12 years old and I knew about it. This is something that is a very sad and disgusting part of politics, but it is what it is.”
On April 20, Giuliani was sued by his Republican opponent Lee Zeldin who complained that thousands of signatures on petitions circulated to allow Giuliani to compete in the GOP primary were fake.
“Lee insinuated that my team was sitting down in a back room writing the voter rolls,” Giuliani told Legal Newsline. “Not only that but Lee claimed we had witnesses that were not registered Republicans. That was a false claim that we disproved in 30 seconds.”
As previously reported, Zeldin was endorsed for governor by Republican leaders at a convention in February.
“Lee is the product of a deal that was made over a year ago before any other candidates got in the race,” Giuliani said. “The Republican Party didn’t want 2.9 million registered Republicans to make the decision over who their nominee is. They wanted the party bosses to make the decision. Because of that, they are doing everything possible to curtail any competition. It's the exact opposite of what we should be doing as a party.”
The New York Board of Elections determined in their review of the Giuliani petitions that out of 25,000 signatures, only four were faulty, according to a press release issued by Giuliani.
“Zeldin dropped the lawsuit within three hours of my Board of Elections hearing where I got his lawyer to admit they were wasting my time and resources,” he said.
The Republican primary is June 28.
Former President Donald Trump has not yet endorsed a candidate but Giuliani said that he had a great conversation with his former boss over the weekend. The 2009 Duke University graduate worked as an associate director for the Trump administration's Office of Public Liaison in 2017 until he was promoted as the president's special assistant in 2019.
“President Trump is following this race very closely,” Giuliani added. “He has really liked the campaign that our team has been running. He calls regularly. For me, it's an honor as somebody who worked for the president for four years but has known him for over 25 years. He wants to see debates and I think that's a very fair thing.”
A debate is scheduled for June 13 on CBS.
Other Republicans aiming to unseat Democrat incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul are Harry Wilson and Rob Astorino.