Disciplinary Committee Calls for Rudy Giuliani’s Disbarment

After conducting a disciplinary investigation, a D.C. bar panel has found that Rudy Giuliani “forfeited his right to practice law” and “should be disbarred” for his actions in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. The recommendations come months after Giuliani was initially interviewed by the three-person panel in December. 

The committee’s report, released Friday, found that Giuliani violated Pennsylvania law “by filing a lawsuit seeking to change the result of the 2020 presidential election when he had no factual basis, and consequently, no legitimate legal grounds, to do so.” 

Giuliani was a central figure in the promotion of conspiracy theories following Trump’s loss to President Biden, acting as an attorney for the former president in several lawsuits challenging the election outcome. The committee focused heavily on Giuliani’s efforts to challenge the results of the election in Pennsylvania, which included a push to get seven million votes tossed. “This Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote in a 2020 ruling. “In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state,” Brann wrote in a 2020 ruling. 

In reviewing Giuliani’s role in the lawsuit, the committee established that  “Mr. Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy. His malicious and meritless claims have done lasting damage and are antagonistic to the oath to ‘support the Constitution of the United States of America’ that he swore when he was admitted to the Bar.” 

“The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments,” the committee added. “It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect. He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done. For these reasons, we unanimously recommend that Mr. Giuliani be disbarred.” 

Giuliani’s post-election exploits are also of interest to multiple ongoing criminal probes. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Giuliani sat for more than eight hours of questioning in relation to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to meddle with the election. Giuliani has also testified before a Georgia grand jury investigating attempted election subversion in the state. 

It’s unclear whether Giuliani is at risk of being indicted in those investigations, but the committee’s decision puts him on track to be stripped of his law license. The ultimate decision on whether to disbar Giuliani will be made by a larger disciplinary board and D.C.’s Court of Appeals.

Giuliani is not the only one of Trump’s former attorneys whose legal career has been jeopardized by their work for the former president. Earlier this week former Trump attorney Lin Wood announced his retirement from legal work in a transparent attempt to avoid his own disbarment. Wood had been accused of filing unsubstantiated election lawsuits in Michigan and was awaiting the ruling of a disciplinary trial in Georgia. John Eastman, another pro-Trump attorney who took pains to prevent Trump’s election loss, is also facing potential disbarment in California over his role in concocting the “fake electors” scheme to undermine the Electoral College vote. 

Giuliani has now joined Wood and Eastman in having his license threatened, but given the multiple criminal investigations into the effort to overturn the election results, continuing to practice law may be the least of the former mayor’s worries.