Attorney disciplinary committee recommends Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for 2020 election legal work

An attorney disciplinary committee has recommended Rudy Giuliani be disbarred in Washington, DC, for his efforts on behalf of then-President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election results.

The committee, which weighs cases of legal ethics and attorney misconduct in the District of Columbia, issued the report and recommendation on Giuliani on Friday following a lawyer misconduct hearing for Giuliani in December that functioned like a trial.

"He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it," the committee wrote. "By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law. He should be disbarred."

The panel's recommendation is not final; the case against Giuliani still must be considered by DC's Board on Professional Responsibility and by the DC court of appeals.

The committee specifically criticized Giuliani for dishonesty following the 2020 election and what they called "calculated" attempts to undermine trust in elections, when he falsely claimed in a Pennsylvania federal court there had been election fraud that could overturn Joe Biden's win of the state.

"Mr. Giuliani has not acknowledged or accepted responsibility for his misconduct. To the contrary, he has declared his indignation over being subjected to the disciplinary process," the committee wrote in its report. "We are convinced that a sanction must be enhanced to ensure that it adequately deters both Respondent (Giuliani) and other attorneys from acting similarly in the future."

The three-person committee, comprised of two attorneys and a member of the public, was unanimous in recommending Giuliani be disbarred.

Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, called the report a "great injustice," and said "the decision-makers at the DC Bar Association are nothing more than an arm of the permanent regime in Washington."

Giuliani's attorneys had argued to the committee that he had a reasonable basis to believe the claims in litigation were true and that he was relying on what others working with the Trump campaign told him about the fraud allegations.

Giuliani, the former top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and a lawyer for Trump, is also facing an attorney ethics review in New York. His law license at this time is temporarily suspended, marking a substantial downfall for the once highly regarded American political and legal figurehead.

"We have considered in mitigation Mr. Giuliani's conduct following the September 11 attacks as well as his prior service in the Justice Department and as Mayor of New York City. But all of that happened long ago," the report said on Friday. "The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments."