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TOPLINE
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani had his law license temporarily suspended by the New York State Bar Thursday for making “demonstrably false and misleading statements” in his effort to overturn the presidential election, potentially becoming the first in a series of Trump-allied attorneys who could face disbarment and other serious consequences for their post-election lawsuits.
KEY FACTS
The New York State Bar will hold a formal disciplinary hearing at which Giuliani can make his case and which will lead to a determination as to whether his license to practice law should be permanently revoked.
The Georgia State Bar is investigating—and could potentially disbar—pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood for his post-election conduct, including lawsuits attempting to overturn the results and spreading outlandish conspiracy theories involving such figures as Vice President Mike Pence and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Ethics complaints have also been filed with the state bars in Arizona, Michigan and Texas against lawyers who filed post-election cases—most notably against Sidney Powell, a far-right attorney who was the most prominent spreader of a fraud conspiracy theory involving Dominion Voting Systems’ voting machines.
Dominion and voting machine company Smartmatic have sued Powell and Giuliani—as well as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, in Dominion’s case, and Fox News— accusing them of defamation by spreading false claims about the companies’ voting machines.
Michigan state and local officials have asked a federal court to sanction Powell and her co-attorneys for their post-election lawsuit in the state, Pennsylvania has asked for sanctions against attorneys who brought a fraud case in Colorado, and various state and local officials have asked Trump, Powell and other lawyers to pay defendants’ attorneys fees for the post-election cases they brought.
Courts have disciplined some allies of former President Donald Trump already: A judge in Washington, D.C., ordered attorney Erick Kaardal to face a disciplinary committee, the Arizona GOP was forced to pay $18,000 in legal fees and election officials in Georgia’s DeKalb and Cobb counties were awarded attorneys fees in a lawsuit Trump brought against them.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
In a post-election case in Pennsylvania, Giuliani “himself stated: ‘I don’t know what’s more serious than being denied your right to vote in a democracy.’ We agree,” the New York State Bar’s grievance committee wrote in their ruling suspending Giuliani’s license. “It is the very reason why espousing false factual information to large segments of the public as a means of discrediting the rights of legitimate voters is so immediately harmful to it and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law.”
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Giuliani has the right to request a hearing to appeal the ruling, though the committee predicted in their ruling the lawyer’s alleged misconduct “will likely result in substantial permanent sanctions at the conclusion of these disciplinary proceedings.” Before that, Giuliani and Powell will appear in court Thursday afternoon for a hearing on whether Dominion’s lawsuits against them should be dismissed. Powell and her co-attorneys in Michigan will also appear in court on July 6 as the court considers whether the attorneys should be sanctioned.
CHIEF CRITICS
Giuliani’s attorneys said in a statement Thursday the suspension of the lawyer’s license was “unprecedented,” noting they “believe that our client does not pose a present danger to the public interest” and predicting Giuliani’s license would be reinstated after he’s able to present his case. Powell and Wood have also defended their post-election actions and decried the efforts to punish them for their lawsuits. Wood unsuccessfully sued the Georgia State Bar in a bid to stop their investigation against him from moving forward, writing on Telegram after the lawsuit failed he would “never quit fighting against…the corrupt, politically agenda-driven State Bar of Georgia.” Powell has previously said in emailed statements to Forbes she believes the defamation lawsuits against her are “political maneuver[s] motivated by the radical left that [have] no basis in fact or law” and decried the Michigan officials’ efforts to sanction her as “yet another political publicity stunt—not to mention a waste of taxpayer resources.”
KEY BACKGROUND
Trump and his allies brought more than 60 lawsuits in the aftermath of the election challenging the vote count and seeking to overturn the results, which all failed except for one narrow ruling in Pennsylvania that only affected a small number of ballots. Giuliani led the Trump campaign’s legal efforts, though he only directly represented the president in one case in Pennsylvania—during which he backed off the election fraud claims he made outside of the courtroom and acknowledged during the hearing, “This is not a fraud case.” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Gov. Tom Wolf had pushed the New York State Bar to discipline Giuliani as a result of his behavior in the lawsuit, and the grievance committee singled out Giuliani’s “mischaracterization of the case” and conflicting statements about whether he was alleging voter fraud in its ruling suspending his license.
TANGENT
In addition to the lawsuits brought by Dominion and Smartmatic, Giuliani is also facing two separate lawsuits brought by Democratic members of Congress alleging the attorney helped to provoke the attack on the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.
