Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred for trying to overturn the 2020 election, bar ethics panel says

• Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred, a DC legal ethics panel says.
• The Washington DC Board on Professional Responsibility slammed his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor turned Donald Trump lawyer, should be disbarred, a Washington DC bar ethics panel said Friday.

The DC Board on Professional Responsibility found that Giuliani violated Pennsylvania's Rules of Professional Conduct when he filed a lawsuit seeking to toss out millions of votes in the state following the 2020 election.

"We have considered in mitigation Mr. Giuliani's conduct following the September 11 attacks as well as his prior service in the Justice Department and as Mayor of New York City," the panel said in a 38-page report released Friday. "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."

The recommendation follows a finding in December from the Washington DC bar's Office of Disciplinary Counsel that Giuliani's law license should be revoked. The Washington, DC Court of Appeals, which has already suspended Giuliani's ability to practice law in the district, must now decide whether to follow through on the recommendation and disbar him.

Giuliani is part of a long list of Trump lawyers to be sanctioned for their conduct. New York's state bar has also suspended Giuliani's law license for his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election results.

In its recommendation report, the board found excuses from Giuliani that he was simply under-prepared to argue the Pennsylvania case to be unpersuasive.

"Mr. Giuliani's argument that he did not have time fully to investigate his case before filing it is singularly unimpressive," the board wrote. "He sought to upend the presidential election but never had evidence to support that effort."

Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, attacked the DC Bar Association in response to the board's recommendation.

"The decision-makers at the DC Bar Association are nothing more than an arm of the permanent regime in Washington," Goodman said. "This is also part of an effort to deny President Trump effective counsel by persecuting Rudy Giuliani — objectively one of the most effective prosecutors in American history. This is the sort of behavior we'd expect out of the Soviet Union, not America."

The board wrote that disbarment — rather than a lesser reprimand — was necessary because of Giuliani's lack of remorse and "utter disregard for facts" undermines public confidence in the legal profession.

"His hyperbolic claims of election fraud and the core thesis of the Pennsylvania litigation were utterly false, and recklessly so," the board wrote. "Mr. Giuliani's rash overstatement claiming that the election was stolen had no evidence to support it. His utter disregard for facts denigrates the legal profession."

This story has been updated.