Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who built a career as an uncompromising crime-fighter, has been permanently disbarred from practising law in Washington DC in a ruling stemming from his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favour.
The decision came in the form of a one-page order issued by the US capital’s court of appeal and followed a similar order issued in July in New York, Giuliani’s home state.
Unlike that ruling, the decision in Washington was not directly related to his actions in Trump’s election-denying effort but was instead based on his failure to respond to a request that he explain why he should not be subject to the same penalty as meted out in New York.
“ORDERED that Rudolph W Giuliani is hereby disbarred from the practice of law in the District of Columbia, nunc pro tunc [a Latin term used in legal parlance to mean retroactive] to August 9, 2021,” Thursday’s appeal court order said.
In 2021, the appeals court had suspended Giuliani’s law licence in Washington after being notified of a similar decision in New York.
The DC bar’s board of responsibility recommended in 2022 that Giuliani’s law licence be indefinitely revoked after its investigators found him guilty of unethical conduct over inaccurate and unsupported claims he made in testimony to a federal court in Pennsylvania while disputing the 2020 election results.
The DC court of appeals order did not hinge on those findings. By contrast, the New York appeals court made similar judgments in issuing its ruling, asserting that Giuliani “repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious, to the federal court, state lawmakers, the public … and this Court concerning the 2020 Presidential election”.
Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Giuliani called the order “an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice”.
“Members of the legal community who want to protect the integrity of our justice system should immediately speak out against this partisan, politically motivated decision,” he said.
The order is the latest blow to the standing of a man who was dubbed “America’s mayor” for the leadership role he played in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, which happened when he was the city’s mayor.
Last year, two election workers in Georgia won $148m in damages after he defamed them by accusing them of fraud. A week later he filed for bankruptcy.
