Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been disbarred from practicing law in Washington, D.C, and it all stems from his “false and misleading statements” about former President Donald Trump’s election loss.
The decision by three judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, seen in documents reviewed by Newsweek, follows after Giuliani, 80, was disbarred in New York in July.
“Rudolph W. Giuliani is hereby disbarred from the practice of law in the District of Columbia,” the document read.
Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, told the Associated Press that the decision is “an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice.”
“Members of the legal community who want to protect the integrity of our justice system should immediately speak out against this partisan, politically motivated decision,” Goodman said in a text message.
Giuliani’s license to practice law was suspended in D.C. in July 2021. The suspension in the country’s capital was triggered automatically after Giuliani’s suspension a month prior from practicing in New York.
He was suspended from practicing law in New York for his “false and misleading statements” about former President Donald Trump’s election loss.
This past summer, a New York appeals court found Giuliani had “flagrantly misused his prominent position as the personal attorney for former President Trump and his campaign” to spread false claims about the 2020 election.
Giuliani “deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession” and “actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 Presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant,” the New York court wrote in July.
Giuliani had said the Democratic Party is like a “Communist dictatorship” after he was disbarred in New York.
On July 25, the D.C. Court of Appeals had ordered Giuliani to explain why he shouldn’t be disbarred “in reciprocity” in New York. He apparently did not file a response.
A bar disciplinary panel in D.C. had already recommended Giuliani be disbarred in 2023.
“He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it,” the panel’s 38-page decision read. “By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law.”
Giuliani is just one of Trump’s former attorneys who has faced disciplinary proceedings after their participation in the former President’s rhetoric around election reversals.
He served as an advisor to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and later joined as a part of the former President’s personal legal team in 2018. He remained on Trump’s team through the 2020 presidential election. He spoke at the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection on the United States Capitol.
Giuliani represented Trump in many lawsuits around the attempts to overturn the election results as well as making debunked allegations about rigged voting machines.
Criminal charges were brought against Giuliani in both Georgia and Arizona. The former lawyer pleaded not guilty to each case. Two election workers in Georgia also obtained $148 million from him in a defamation judgment for false allegations Giuliani made about the 2020 election.
Just a few days ago, a financial investigation firm has agreed to a last minute reduction in Giuliani’s $324,843 bill for a bankruptcy probe. The firm, Global Data Risk, filed an emergency application on Thursday, seeking a bankruptcy court’s approval of the deal it struck with Giuliani’s bankruptcy trustee.
However, the former New York mayor has not agreed to the deal and claims that he was overcharged by more than $150,000.
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