Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred for pursuing false Trump election claims, review panel says

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WASHINGTON (AP) Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani could be disbarred from Washington after a review panel condemned Friday how he pursued false claims made by former President Donald Trump about his 2020 election loss.

Giuliani claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence, the three-member panel wrote in a report detailing errors and unsupported claims made by the former mayor in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to overturn the defeat of Republican president over Democrat Joe Biden.

Between Election Day and the January 6, 2021, riot in the US Capitol, Giuliani and other Trump lawyers repeatedly asserted claims of election fraud that were almost uniformly rejected by federal courts and state. He is the third lawyer who could be disbarred from practicing law because of what he did for Trump: John Eastman faces disbarment in California, and Lin Wood this week surrendered his license in Georgia.

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Mr. Giulianis’ efforts to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election have helped destabilize our democracy, wrote the panel of Robert C. Bernius, Carolyn Haynesworth-Murrell and Jay A. Brozost.

The misconduct here sadly surpasses all of his past accomplishments, they wrote. It is unparalleled in its destructive intent and impact. He sought to disrupt a presidential election and continued his refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing.

Giuliani has already had his New York law license suspended for false statements he made after the election. The review panels’ work will now go to the DC Court of Appeals in Washington for a final decision.

Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, criticized the panels as functioning as an attempt to prosecute Giuliani and part of a larger effort to deny effective counsel to President Trump.

I am calling on the rank-and-file members of the DC Bar Association to speak out against this great injustice, Goodman said in a statement.

Giulianis made him a key figure after the election in several federal and state probes. He met with the special counsel appointed to investigate efforts to subvert the 2020 election and prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, who are also investigating.

The panel reviewed a case argued by Giuliani on Nov. 17, 2020, ten days after The Associated Press and other news outlets called the election for Biden.

The Trump campaign has complained that Philadelphia and six Democratic-controlled counties in Pennsylvania allow voters to make corrections to mail-in ballots that would otherwise be disqualified for a technicality, such as lack of a secrecy envelope or a signature. Some other counties did not follow suit.

Giuliani contested the case. Although he once served as a US attorney in New York, the Pennsylvania argument was his first court appearance as a lawyer since 1992, the year before he was elected mayor of New York, according to federal records .

He spent much of the hearing saying there was no basis for a national conspiracy to steal the election from Trump, something the former president continues to dispute today.

US District Judge Matthew Brann rejected Giulianis’ arguments a few days later, noting that the Trump campaign wanted him to throw away millions of votes.

One might expect that when seeking such a shocking result, a plaintiff would come armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of widespread corruption, Brann wrote then. That didn’t happen.

The panel’s review Friday said Giuliani did not offer any evidence that fraudulent mail-in votes were actually cast or counted, but instead made his own inferences.

Mr. Giulianis’ argument that he did not have time to fully investigate his case before filing it is not credible, the panel wrote. He seeks to revoke the presidential election but has no evidence to support that effort.

The panel said Giuliani violated a rule that prohibits lawyers from engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.

Clogging the courts with unnecessary and frivolous cases is a violation, the panel said.

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