Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks outside the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., in December 2023 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).
Months after former NYC Mayor and former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Rudy Giuliani was disbarred from practicing law in the Empire State over his 2020 election lawyering in service of Donald Trump, a Washington, D.C., court has doled out the same punishment.
In May, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility recommended Giuliani’s disbarment, calling it the “only sanction that will protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession” from future “frivolous” election outcome challenges.
By July, the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Department, wrote that “no prior disciplinary cases involving intentionally made false statements” were “remotely comparable” to Giuliani’s case, and ordered him disbarred.
Giuliani, the court said, “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 seriousness of respondent’s misconduct cannot be overstated,” the New York order said. “Respondent flagrantly misused his prominent position as the personal attorney for former President Trump and his campaign, through which respondent repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious, to the federal court, state lawmakers, the public, the [attorney grievance committee], and this Court concerning the 2020 Presidential election, in which he baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process.”
Now the New York disbarment has come back to haunt in D.C., where reciprocal disbarment discipline has been imposed on Giuliani — in the aftermath of his apparent non-response and failure to object. The court explains:
In consideration of the certified order from the state of New York disbarring respondent from the practice of law; this court’s July 25, 2024, order maintaining respondent’s suspension pending final disposition of this proceeding and directing him to show cause why reciprocal discipline should not be imposed; and respondent’s D.C. Bar R. XI, § 14(g) affidavit filed on August 9, 2021; and it appearing that respondent has not filed a response, it is
ORDERED that Rudolph W. Giuliani is hereby disbarred from the practice of law in the District of Columbia, nunc pro tunc to August 9, 2021. See In re Sibley, 990 A.2d 483, 487-88 (D.C. 2010) (explaining that there is a rebuttable presumption in favor of imposition of identical discipline and exceptions to this presumption should be rare); In re Fuller, 930 A.2d 194, 198 (D.C. 2007) (“The imposition of identical discipline when the respondent fails to object should be close to automatic, with minimum review by both the Board and this court.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
In comment to Law&Crime, Giuliani political adviser Ted Goodman called the disbarment an “absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice” that is rooted in politics.
“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. “The people coming after Mayor Giuliani can’t take away the fact that he remains the most effective prosecutor in American history, who did more to improve the lives of others than almost any other American alive today.”
Read the brief order here.
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