(Bloomberg) — Attorney disciplinary regulators recommended Rudy Giuliani be disbarred in Washington, DC, after a local bar association panel’s preliminary finding that he likely committed misconduct in pressing Donald Trump’s failed legal challenge to President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Pennsylvania.
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Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton “Phil” Fox, whose office brought the ethics complaint against Giuliani, argued that the most severe sanction — losing his law license in Washington — was appropriate because Giuliani’s conduct in Pennsylvania was part of a broader effort to undermine the legitimacy of an election.
“It was a fundamental harm to the fabric of the country that could well be irreparable,” Fox said. “Any lawyer that engages in this kind of misconduct, harming the country as this has done, has at least got to realize that his or her law license is at risk.”
The hearing committee’s decision Thursday is tentative — it’s not final and could change as his case continues to wind through the DC bar association’s disciplinary process. But it’s a major initial setback for the former New York City mayor in his defense against a legal ethics complaint that carries potential discipline ranging from a warning to the loss of his license.
Giuliani’s attorney John Leventhal, a retired judge, advocated for the least severe punishment, such as a letter of reprimand or private admonition. He argued that disbarring Giuliani for pursuing post-election litigation in Pennsylvania that his client believed had merit would “chill” the work of other lawyers.
Leventhal said Giuliani’s conduct didn’t warrant a more severe penalty, rejecting comparisons to a previous DC attorney ethics case involving a lawyer suspended for 90 days for suing his dry cleaners for millions of dollars over a pair of lost pants.
The hearing committee chair Robert Bernius announced that the panel had made a preliminary finding that the disciplinary counsel’s office had proven at least one of the alleged violations of attorney practice rules. They did not specify the violation.
Giuliani was a chief architect of Trump’s legal strategy to contest his losses in key states in the 2020 presidential election. He personally worked with local attorneys in Pennsylvania to press a lawsuit in federal court arguing the state’s election processes were unconstitutional. A district court judge and, later, a federal appeals panel tossed the case out.
The DC disciplinary counsel’s office accused Giuliani of violating attorney practice rules in his handling of the litigation, which involved asking the Pennsylvania judge to invalidate large quantities of ballots cast across the state, or, alternatively, to order a new election. Fox argued at a hearing last week that Giuliani “weaponized his law license” to try to undermine the US Constitution.
The three-person hearing committee shared its findings after hearing several days of testimony and arguments. Giuliani briefly presented character evidence that he believed weighed against sanctions, including his work on behalf of first responders following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. The disciplinary counsel then presented its case for disbarment, while Giuliani’s lawyer argued for the least serious sanction possible.
The hearing committee will submit a final report with its recommendations to the DC Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility, which will decide whether to accept it. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals is the final arbiter.
Giuliani’s lawyers made a late push to defend against the allegations on Thursday, putting their client back on the record to discuss efforts he says he made to personally conduct interviews with people who claimed to have evidence of wrongdoing in Pennsylvania voting processes. He insisted they did vet the information and disregarded certain tips, saying it was “unfair” to think they accepted every complaint they received.
A state court in New York previously suspended Giuliani’s license there after finding he put the public at risk by spreading lies about the 2020 election. His license in Washington also has been suspended while he fights the ethics complaint.
(Updated with additional information about the hearing.)
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