Giuliani Violated Attorney Ethics Rules With 2020 Election Fraud Legal Claims, DC Bar Disciplinary Committee Finds

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The District of Columbia Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility declared on Thursday that Rudy Giuliani violated at least one attorney ethics rule while serving as former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer pursuing failed 2020 election legal challenges.

The bar ethics committee’s finding means that Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and one time Manhattan U.S. attorney, is now facing professional sanctions to be determined by the DC court of appeals.

As CNN explained, “the decision by the hearing committee for the DC Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility is preliminary and non-binding. After another round of hearings in front of the committee, the proceedings then move to the board and eventually to DC’s local court of appeals, the final arbiter on whether Giuliani should be sanctioned.”

The committee’s initial findings are unquestionably a blow to Giuliani, who has been fighting to keep his license to practice law. In June of 2021, New York suspended Giuliani’s bar license after an appeals court ruled he made “demonstrably false and misleading” claims to undermine the 2020 election. DC temporarily suspended Giuliani’s license following the New York bar’s decision.

The DC Bar’s disciplinary counsel Hamilton Fox argued before the board that Giuliani had “weaponized his law license” to help keep Trump in power, despite knowing the president had lost reelection.

Reuters reported that “at the end of Thursday’s portion of the hearing, a visibly angry Giuliani accused Fox of engaging in a ‘personal attack,’ adding, ‘I don’t know what happened to the defense of lawyers who take on unpopular causes.’”

Giuliani’s argument did seem to have some impact with the board as committee member Jay Brozost asked Fox at one point, “What I am struggling with is: Any time there is a challenge to an election that is unsuccessful, would that constitute sanctionable activity if it is unsuccessful?”

However, in the end, Robert Bernius, the chair of the hearing committee, declared Fox had proven at least one of the charges with “clear and convincing evidence,” reported CNN.

Giuliani, during his arguments, also noted he had yet to prove his case, while filing lawsuits, but argued that was part of the process:

You don’t start a lawsuit being able to prove – I mean, you’re very lucky when you do. You don’t start a lawsuit being able to prove, but being able to responsibly allege. I was responsibly alleging, based on the things that were told to me by other people. I wasn’t proving – I had a long way to go to prove.