A Washington, D.C., disciplinary committee recommended Friday that Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“We are convinced that a sanction must be enhanced to ensure that it adequately deters both [Giuliani] and other attorneys from acting similarly in the future,” the committee wrote in its recommendation to the D.C. Bar.
The panel of D.C. attorneys deliberated for months following a series of weekslong hearings about Giuliani’s efforts to help then-President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The committee specifically pointed to Giuliani’s legal efforts to claim that there was election fraud in Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden won by more than 80,000 votes.
The report says Giuliani first began to work on litigation alleging fraud after receiving a complaint that there were “observational boundaries” in Philadelphia during the mail-in ballot canvassing. Those boundaries were set up to protect workers from COVID-19, which was ravaging the state and country at the time.
Giuliani “ultimately sought to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the committee said in its report. “He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it. By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law. He should be disbarred.”
The state of New York previously suspended Giuliani’s law license in 2021 over his “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about the 2020 election.
And in June, the Justice Department interviewed Giuliani as part of a special counsel investigation into his and others’ efforts to overturn the election.
“The appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner,” Ted Goodman, Giuliani’s spokesperson, told The Associated Press at the time.
Giuliani said he plans to challenge the committee’s recommendation.
“We are obviously disappointed by the Committee’s decision but look forward to filing a vigorous appeal,” Barry Kamins, one of Giuliani’s attorneys, told Politico in a statement.