The Supreme Court of the State of New York has just suspended Rudy Giuliani’s law license for “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts” in the aftermath of the 2020 election:
BREAKING: Rudy Giuliani's law license has been suspended.
A disciplinary body says he made "demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump."https://t.co/6PfpsrAFeV
— Jan Wolfe (@JanNWolfe) June 24, 2021
From the ruling:
For the reasons that follow, 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. These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client. We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings before the Attorney Grievance Committee (sometimes AGC or Committee).
The state took issue with statements Giuliani made about Pennsylvania:
. . .Respondent repeatedly stated that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania more absentee ballots came in during the election than were sent out before the election.
. . .Respondent repeatedly represented to the court that his client, the plaintiff, was pursuing a fraud claim, when indisputably it was not.
. . .Respondent repeatedly stated that dead people “voted” in Philadelphia in order to discredit the results of the vote in that city.
Georgia:
. . .Respondent repeated to lawmakers and the public at large numerous false and misleading statements regarding the Georgia presidential election results.
. . .At various times, respondent claimed that 65,000 or 66,000 or 165,00 underage voters illegally voted in the Georgia 2020 election. The Georgia Office of the Secretary of State undertook an investigation of this claim. It compared the list of all of the people who voted in Georgia to their full birthdays. The audit revealed that there were zero (0) underage voters in the 2020 election.
. . .Respondent stated to lawmakers, and the public at large, that more than 2,500 Georgia felons voted illegally.
. . .Respondent stated that dead people voted in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election.
. . .Respondent represented that video evidence from security cameras depicted Georgia election officials engaging in the illegal counting of mail-in ballots.
And Arizona:
. . .Respondent made false and misleading statements that “illegal aliens” had voted in Arizona during the 2020 presidential election.
Get ready for the victory laps
Earlier this year @RepMondaire and I wrote a letter requesting that Rudy Giuliani be disbarred. We are pleased his law license has been suspended. He has dishonored the legal profession, become a national embarrassment and violated numerous ethical rules of professional conduct. https://t.co/6QZcDD0TxR
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 24, 2021
UPDATE.
But as conservative attorney Gabriel Malor points out, most of these charges were made for statements Giuliani said on TV and not in court. THREAD ==>
Not wild about this Giuliani interim suspension. The only in-court misstatement the order relies on is when, during the Boockvar argument Giuliani first said they were pursuing a fraud claim, then said that fraud was underlying their claim, then said they didn't plead it. pic.twitter.com/IQIyGNeGyE
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 24, 2021
Everything else the order refers to is stuff Giuliani said on TV, the landscape company presser, his podcast, or in private settings.
See, for example, pic.twitter.com/fnOPoJTaBB
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 24, 2021
If every time a lawyer said something wrong in front of a judge, got corrected, and in the next breath agreed to the correction resulted in suspension for making a false statement, there would be very few active lawyers.
And the rest of this is just TV lawyer garbage.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 24, 2021
Not great, Bob. No, not even in the context of the crazy-pants election challenges.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 24, 2021
This is the exchange that the NY court (not even the court in which this occurred) concludes is a false and misleading statement to misrepresent the status of a proceeding.
That's cutting it real fine. pic.twitter.com/1xvdt253xJ
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 24, 2021
Shorn of that one in-court misstatement, the rest of this order just points to Giuliani making crazy-ass election fraud claims on radio, TV, podcasts, and to sympathetic Republican legislators.
I know you think this could have been THE END OF THE REPUBLIC. Simmer down.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 24, 2021
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