A disciplinary committee recommended Friday that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for his efforts to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory over former President Trump.
The DC Board of Professional Responsibility opened hearings into Giuliani’s actions in December. That action stemmed from a November 2020 lawsuit brought by Hamilton “Phil” Fox of the DC Disciplinary Counsel.
Fox has asserted that Giuliani had “weaponized his law license” to push baseless claims that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen, bringing “a frivolous action in an attempt to undermine the Constitution.”
On Friday the DC Board of Professional Responsibility wrote in its report recommending his disbarment, “Mr. Giuliani has not acknowledged or accepted responsibility for his misconduct. To the contrary, he has declared his indignation over being subjected to the disciplinary process.”
The committee added, “We are convinced that a sanction must be enhanced to ensure that it adequately deters both Respondent (Giuliani) and other attorneys from acting similarly in the future.”
The committee found fault with Giuliani for dishonesty following the 2020 election and what it called “calculated” attempts to undermine trust in elections, pointing to his false claims in a Pennsylvania federal court of election fraud in that state.
Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes in 2020.
During the committee’s December hearing, Giuliani’s attorney John Leventhal said his client should not face charges because the judge at the time never accepted Giuliani’s complaint in the Pennsylvania lawsuit, which Giuliani himself signed.
Leventhal also noted that the judge did not sanction Giuliani when dismissing the arguments.
The DC committee’s recommendation is not final. Any discipline, including disbarment, must be imposed by the DC Court of Appeals.
Giuliani, who was Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001, had his New York law license suspended in June 2021 after a state appeals court ruled he had made “demonstrably false and misleading” statements about voter fraud.
Giuliani’s DC law license was temporarily suspended after the New York decision.
