A D.C. Bar Association disciplinary board recommended Friday that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani be stripped of his law license for reckless fraud claims after the 2020 election.
The panel announced its findings in a 38 page decision focused on a post-election lawsuit Giuliani filed in an effort to throw out thousands of votes in the battleground state of Pennsylvania won by President Joe Biden.
“Mr. Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy. His malicious and meritless assertions have caused lasting damage,” the panel wrote.
“He claimed massive voter fraud but had no evidence of it. By prosecuting that destructive case, Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law,” the panel added. “His utter disregard of him for the facts denigrates the legal profession.”
The findings of the three-person committee will now go to the full nine-member disciplinary board. If the board agrees with the finding, it will be forwarded to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which makes the final decision in disciplinary cases.
An attorney for Giuliani, Barry Kamins, said an appeal will be filed.
“We are obviously disappointed in the Committee’s recommendation, but we look forward to vigorously appealing to the Professional Responsibility Board and, if necessary, to the Court,” Kamins said in a statement.
Ted Goodman, a Giuliani spokesman, added in a statement that the committee’s action Friday was “part of a larger effort to deny President Trump effective counsel by going after Mayor Giuliani, objectively one of the most effective prosecutors in history.” of the United States”.
“I am calling on the rank and file members of the DC Bar Association to speak up for Mayor Giuliani and against this gross injustice,” Goodman said.
Giuliani has been involved in other election-related investigations. He has been interviewed by federal investigators as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and last year testified before a grand jury in Atlanta as part of an investigation in which he was told he is a “target” of that criminal investigation.
The DC Bar committee’s recommendation builds on a December preliminary recommendation that Giuliani be disbarred following a hearing that included testimony from the former New York City mayor.
The Pennsylvania lawsuit in question centered on allegations that poll watchers hung too far back during voting and complaints from a pair of Trump voters that they had not been allowed to “cure” their faulty ballots.
“[N]any of the allegations in fact linked any of those circumstances to widespread improper voting. They contained only vague and speculative allegations of random and isolated election irregularities that did not and could not support Respondent’s inflated legal claims,” the panel wrote on Friday.
Giuliani, the panel said, pressed on anyway, claiming there had been “’a deliberate scheme of willful and determined discrimination’ against the Trump campaign, concluding that the Democrats ‘stole an election. . . in this Commonwealth’ and that he had ‘hundreds of affidavits’ supporting his claim. These claims were simply not true.”
Giuliani “based the Pennsylvania litigation solely on speculation, mistrust and suspicion,” the panel said, adding that he then sought an injunction disqualifying ballots in majority Democratic counties and an order preventing the state from certifying ballots. election results.
Giuliani told the panel that time was of the essence, so he had to file the lawsuit before he had evidence to support the claim. That evidence never materialized.
Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by more than 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania.
“We cannot say clearly and convincingly that Mr. Giuliani intentionally lied to the District Court in connection with the Pennsylvania litigation, and was not charged with doing so. But his hyperbolic claims of voter fraud and the central thesis of the Pennsylvania litigation were absolutely false, and recklessly,” the panel said, noting that Giuliani has not expressed any regrets.
“On the contrary, he has declared his outrage (he is “shocked and offended”) at being subjected to the disciplinary process (“I really believe that I have been persecuted for three or four years”), the panel noted.
The members added that they “considered Mr. Giuliani’s conduct in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as mitigating, as well as his previous service in the Department of Justice and as mayor of New York City. But all of that happened a long time ago.” “.
“The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past achievements. It was unparalleled in its purpose and destructive effect,” they added. “He tried to disrupt a presidential election and he persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done. For these reasons, we unanimously recommend that Mr. Giuliani be disbarred.”
