Former Trump Attorney Rudy Giuliani Disbarred in DC
Rudy Giuliani is permanently barred from practicing law in Washington, D.C. over his rampant falsehoods about voter fraud in the 2020 election — the second disbarment for former President Donald Trump’s attorney.
In an order Thursday from the D.C. Court of Appeals, which governs members of the bar, Giuliani was disbarred after failing to respond to the allegations against him. He was initially suspended in 2021.
Trump and his allies lost 64 of 65 post-election lawsuits in 2020 resulting in disciplinary consequences for Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal team.
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Giuliani was admitted to D.C’s bar in 1976. Last year, the bar’s disciplinary committee concluded that Giuliani should be disbarred primarily for his involvement in Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Boockvar — a case that alleged without evidence that election fraud took place in multiple Democratic counties in Pennsylvania.
The committee said Giuliani made frivolous arguments that sought to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters, and was part of an effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 election. Giuliani filed the Pennsylvania lawsuit in an attempt to change the result of the 2020 election without any factual basis to the case’s claims, the panel said in last year’s report.
In May, a disciplinary board for the D.C. bar recommended that Giuliani be disbarred in the nation’s capital for his 2020 efforts. Giuliani testified before the board’s committee that he did the best he could do “under the circumstances.”
His D.C. disbarment is the latest consequence for pushing “The Big Lie” that the presidential election was stolen from Trump. While Trump seeks the presidency a third time, his former attorney is facing a deluge of professional, criminal and financial consequences for his 2020 conduct.
In July, the attorney grievance committee for the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, which governs attorney conduct in the state, disbarred Giuliani, who was admitted to New York’s bar in 1969.
The former federal prosecutor was among the first of Trump’s 2020 attorneys to be professionally disciplined. Roughly six months after a mob of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a New York disciplinary committee suspended Giuliani’s license to practice law in the state.