Panel says Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred

WASHINGTON — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani could be disbarred in Washington after a review panel on Friday condemned how he pursued the false claims that then-President Donald Trump made about his 2020 presidential election loss.

Giuliani “claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence,” wrote the three-member panel in a report that details the errors and unsupported claims the former mayor made in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to overturn the Republican president’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Between Election Day and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Giuliani and other Trump lawyers repeatedly pressed claims of election fraud that were almost uniformly rejected by federal and state courts. He’s the third lawyer who could lose his ability to practice law over what he did for Trump: John Eastman faces disbarment in California, and Lin Wood this week surrendered his license in Georgia.

“Mr. Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy,” wrote the panel, Robert C. Bernius, Carolyn Haynesworth-Murrell and Jay A. Brozost.

“The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments,” they wrote. “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.”

Giuliani has already had his New York law license suspended for false statements he made after the election. The Washington review panel’s work will now go to the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, criticized the panel’s work as an attempt to persecute Giuliani and “part of a larger effort to deny President Trump effective counsel.”

“I call on rank-and-file members of the DC Bar Association to speak out against this great injustice,” Goodman said in a statement.

Giuliani’s post-election work has made him a key figure in several federal and state probes. He met with the special counsel appointed to investigate efforts to overturn the 2020 election and prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., also conducting an investigation.