DC Bar panel recommends Rudy Giuliani be disbarred over 2020 election efforts
The D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani be disbarred in the District of Columbia for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
In a report issued Friday, the D.C. Bar committee said that Giuliani, in his capacity as personal attorney to then-President Donald Trump, committed misconduct by his "frivolous and destructive" efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's win through his failed legal challenges to the election results in Pennsylvania.
According to the report, the former New York City mayor violated two legal ethics rules in bringing the lawsuit, which sought to block the certification of votes in the state following Trump's defeat.
The committee said that one of the rules was violated when he filed the lawsuit in Pennsylvania "when he had no factual basis and no legitimate legal grounds to do so."
The other rule Giuliani violated was Pennsylvania's Rules of Professional Conduct, the report said.
"He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it," the committee wrote.
If disbarred, Giuliani, 79, would be prohibited from practicing law in the District of Columbia.
A representative for Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News, but Giuliani adviser Ted Goodman told Mediaite, in a statement issued on Giuliani's behalf, that "The D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility’s Ad Hoc Hearing Committee is persecuting Mayor Rudy Giuliani on behalf of the permanent corrupt regime in Washington."
Giuliani is already prohibited from practicing law in New York, after a New York court last year suspended his law license in the state, for making false statements about the 2020 election.
The D.C. board stated that Giuliani's misconduct "sadly transcends all his past accomplishments."
"He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done," the committee said.
In December, the committee heard several days of testimony about Giuliani's post-election challenges and false election claims as part of an ethics case brought by the Bar's discipline committee.
The D.C. Court of Appeals will make the final decision on whether Giuliani should be disbarred.
