In the weeks and months after the November 2020 election saw President Donald Trump catch a much deserved L, Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani tried their best to argue that the former president didn’t lose, actually. They filed multiple frivolous lawsuits in states that Trump lost, alleging that there was widespread voter fraud without any real evidence to back up those claims. As a result of this prolonged assault on reason, a New York court moved to suspend Giuliani of his license to practice law on Thursday.
Damn. It’s almost like telling blatant lies with zero evidence in federal court is something you shouldn’t do as an attorney.
According to CNBC, the suspension issued by the Appellate Division of the First Judicial Department of New York State Supreme Court goes into effect immediately, with the court order saying “interim suspension is a serious remedy, available only in situations where it is immediately necessary to protect the public from” the attorney’s violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The suspension was sought after by the Attorney Grievance Committee for the First Judicial Department due to the baseless claims he made regarding the 2020 presidential election.
Obviously, Giuliani felt some kind of way about this, telling CNBC that the suspension was “ridiculous” and added that the judges were listening “to false allegations made by the Democrats.”
Nah, b. I’m pretty sure they were just listening to the false allegations made by you. In fact, they even said so in the court order.
“We conclude that there is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020,” the order said.
From CNBC:
Among the examples of conduct cited by the order was what it called Giuliani’s repeated false claims to a federal judge in Pennsylvania after Election Day that Trump’s campaign “was pursuing a fraud claim” in a lawsuit related to voting, “when indisputably it was not.”
Instead, the order noted, the campaign was making an equal protection claim, “not based on fraud at all.”
Another example cited by the order was Giuliani’s repeated claim in an effort to discredit election results that “dead people ‘voted’ in Philadelphia.”
Giuliani at various times claimed that 8,021 dead people’s ballots were cast, “while also reporting the number as 30,000.”
“As the anecdotal poster child to prove this point, he repeatedly stated that famous heavyweight boxer Joe Frazier continued to vote years after he was dead and stated on November 7, 2020 ‘he is still voting here,’ ” the order noted.
In fact, the order added, “The public records submitted on this motion unequivocally show that respondent’s statement is false.”
They really used a 33 page court order to call this man a lying ass liar. I love to see it, y’all. I truly do.
Giuliani’s attorneys released a statement expressing their disappointment with the decision. “We are disappointed with the Appellate Division, First Department’s decision suspending Mayor Giuliani prior to being afforded a hearing on the issues that are alleged,” the statement by John Leventhal and Barry Kamins read. “We believe that once the issues are fully explored at a hearing Mr. Giuliani will be reinstated as a valued member of the legal profession that he has served so well in his many capacities for so many years.”
As alluded to in the statement, the suspension is only temporary and is dependent on the outcome of a formal disciplinary hearing. This isn’t the only legal trouble that the former New York City mayor has found himself in these days, with federal prosecutors currently conducting a criminal investigation related to his work in Ukraine, and he’s also the subject of a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.