Rudy Giuliani, former personal lawyer to Donald Trump, has raised concerns with his post-election lawsuit filed to try to dismiss votes won by Joe Biden. A disciplinary board for the DC Bar Association recommended last week that Giuliani should lose his law license due to reckless fraud claims he made after the 2020 election.
The panel released their findings in a 38-page decision, which focused on Giuliani’s post-election lawsuit, in which he attempted to disregard thousands of votes won by President Joe Biden in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
“Mr. Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy. His malicious and meritless claims have done lasting damage,” the panel wrote. They added: “He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it.”
According to the panel, Giuliani’s actions were a breach of professional conduct. “By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law His utter disregard for facts denigrates the legal profession,” they continued.
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Giuliani's Post-Election Lawsuit Raises Concerns, DC Bar Association Recommends License Revocation
The committee was composed of three people, and their findings will now go to the full nine-member disciplinary board, as reported by NBC News. "If the board agrees with the finding, it'll be sent to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the final decision maker in disciplinary cases," the outlet notes.
Barry Kamins, an attorney for Giuliani, said an appeal is coming. In a statement, Kamins added: "We are obviously disappointed in the Committee’s recommendation but look forward to filing a vigorous appeal to the Board on Professional Responsibility and, if necessary, the Court."
A spokesperson for Giuliani, Ted Goodman, also released a statement. He believed that the committee's action on July 7th was "part of a larger effort to deny President Trump effective counsel by persecuting Mayor Giuliani—objectively one of the most effective prosecutors in American history." Goodman added: "I call on rank-and-file members of the DC Bar Association to speak out in defense of Mayor Giuliani and against this great injustice."
Giuliani, as NBC pointed out, has been involved in "other election-related" probes. He has been interviewed by federal investigators as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into "efforts to overturn the 2020 election," the outlet recalls, and in 2022, he memorably testified before a grand jury in Atlanta for an investigation where he was informed that he is a "target" of that criminal probe.
The DC Bar committee's recommendation "builds on a preliminary recommendation in December that Giuliani be disbarred following a hearing that included testimony from the former New York City mayor," the publication noted. This Pennsylvania lawsuit in question focused on allegations that election observers had been "kept too far back during voting," NBC writes, and on complaints from a pair of Trump voters that they had not been allowed to "cure" their defective ballots.
The panel wrote last Friday: "[N]either complaint factually linked either of those circumstances to widespread improper voting. They contained only vague and speculative allegations about random and isolated electoral irregularities which did not and could not support Respondent’s inflated legal claims."
Giuliani, the panel stressed, went ahead anyway, and claimed that there was a "deliberate scheme of intentional and purposeful discrimination" against the Trump campaign, concluding that "Democrats 'stole an election . . . in this Commonwealth," and that he had "hundreds of affidavits" supporting his assertion. These claims, the panel wrote, "were simply not true."
The panel added that Giuliani "based the Pennsylvania litigation only on speculation, mistrust, and suspicion." They also said he then sought a court order to disqualify ballots in heavily Democratic counties, as well as an order that would block Pennsylvania from certifying the election results.
Giuliani, the panel said, told them that he needed to file the suit before he had evidence to back up the claim, but that "evidence" never materialized. Ultimately, Biden defeated twice-impeached former President Donald Trump by more than 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania.
The panel continued: "We cannot clearly and convincingly say that Mr. Giuliani intentionally lied to the District Court in connection with the Pennsylvania litigation, and he was not charged with doing so. But his hyperbolic claims of election fraud and the core thesis of the Pennsylvania litigation were utterly false, and recklessly so."
They pointed out that Giuliani has not expressed any regrets for his involvement in this: "To the contrary, he has declared his indignation (he is “shocked and offended”) over being subjected to the disciplinary process (“I really believe I’ve been persecuted for three or four years”)."
The members also wrote that they "considered in mitigation Mr. Giuliani’s conduct following the September 11 attacks as well as his prior service in the Justice Department and as Mayor of New York City. But all of that happened long ago."
"The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments. It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect," they added. "He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done. For these reasons, we unanimously recommend that Mr. Giuliani be disbarred."
