The Washington D.C. Court of Appeals has permanently disbarred former Trump Lawyer and NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani from practicing law. It did so in a decision issued on Thursday, September 26, 2024.
The Court cited the earlier New York state decision disbarring Giuliani for violating New York’s s rules of professional conduct for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The DC Bar and New York Bar have a reciprocal relationship, which allows lawyers in one jurisdiction to practice in the other, and also allows for reciprocal discipline. Giuliani had an opportunity to provide evidence for why reciprocal discipline should not be imposed, but he chose not to file a response. Giuliani plans to appeal the D.C. disbarment decision.
The D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility previously recommended Giuliani lose his law licenses and cited his efforts in Pennsylvania to subvert the 2020 election results. In Pennsylvania in 2020, he asked a federal judge to strip hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians of their right to cast their ballot and have it counted, despite having “no objectively reliable evidence” to support his claims.
Giuliani also faces criminal charges in Arizona and Georgia related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Additionally, he filed for bankruptcy after a federal judge in Georgia ordered him to pay $148 million to two former election workers he repeatedly defamed and made the target of election conspiracy theories which led to them facing considerable threats and harassment following the 2020 presidential election.
