- Rudy Giuliani has been disbarred in New York for trying to expand Donald Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims.
- The former New York mayor and Trump’s personal lawyer has been disbarred effective immediately.
- “The gravity of the defendant’s misconduct cannot be overstated,” a New York appeals court said in a ruling.
Rudy Giuliani, once dubbed “America’s Mayor” and a former federal prosecutor who made a career out of prosecuting the Mafia, has been disbarred in his home state of New York.
A New York appeals court ruled Tuesday that Giuliani, who served as former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, should be disbarred “effective immediately” over his efforts to bolster Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud in 2020.
Giuliani, the appeals court wrote in its 31-page decision, “is disbarred from the practice of law, effective immediately and until further order of this Court, and his name is removed from the roll of attorneys and solicitors of the State of New York.”
The 80-year-old former New York City mayor is barred from practicing law in New York because of his “patently false and misleading statements to the courts, legislators and the public in his capacity as counsel to former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed 2020 reelection bid,” the appeals court wrote.
“These false statements were made to improperly bolster the defendant’s narrative that, due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client,” the court said.
She added: “The seriousness of the defendant’s misconduct cannot be overestimated.”
According to the court, Giuliani “flagrantly abused his prominent position as personal attorney to former President Trump and his campaign, through which Defendant repeatedly and intentionally made false statements.”
He also “baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process,” the court said.
“In doing so, the defendant not only willfully violated some of the most fundamental principles of the legal profession, but he also actively contributed to the national conflicts that followed the 2020 presidential election, for which he is completely unrepentant,” the court wrote.
Giuliani’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman blasted the disbarment decision in a statement to Politico and said Giuliani would appeal.
“Members of the legal community who respect the rule of law in this country should immediately come forward and denounce this politically and ideologically corrupt decision,” Goodman told Politico.
“We will appeal this objectively wrong decision in the hope that the appeals process will restore the integrity of our justice system,” Goodman said.
Giuliani faces criminal charges in Arizona and Georgia related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Last year, Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York, days after a federal jury ordered him to pay $148 million to two Georgia election workers he defamed.
