Rudy Giuliani Has Entered The Chat

What could possibly go wrong?

Is it appropriate for an attorney to make false representations about himself in a court filing? Asking for a former federal prosecutor who seems to have neglected to pay his bar dues in DC.

So when America’s Mayor stated on his application to appear pro hac vice on behalf of the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania that “I am a member of the bar in good standing in every jurisdiction where I am admitted to practice,” he was perhaps a bit wide of the mark.

As we noted on these pages a year ago, Mr. Giuliani appeared to practicing law in the District while on inactive status.

Nonetheless, the president’s pro bono attorney’s application was approved by U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann, so, unless that approval is revoked due to lack of candor by a member of the bar, Giuliani will presumably appear on behalf of the Trump campaign at this afternoon’s hearing.

Giuliani joins the third set of lawyers since the Trump campaign filed suit against the Pennsylvania Secretary of Commonewealth Kathy Boockvar on November 9. Porter Wright Morris & Arthur withdrew their appearance on the 12th, and the two Texas lawyers who replaced them noped out yesterday.

Judge Brann refused to allow local counsel Linda Kerns to withdraw her appearance immediately, although she seems likely to be replaced by Harrisburg attorney and talk show host Marc Scaringi. On his November 7 show, Scaringi opined that “There really are no bombshells that are about to drop that will derail a Biden presidency, including these lawsuits. At the end of the day, in my view, the litigation will not work. It will not reverse this election.”

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What prompted Mr. Scaringi’s change of heart in the intervening days? Surely not the progress of the Pennsylvania case, which was massively curtailed after the Third Circuit ruled that political candidates lack standing to sue the Commonwealth to enforce its own election laws. The Trump campaign massively pared back its complaint, nixing five counts of action relating to the alleged exclusion of Republican observers during the vote count.

In the remaining two counts, the campaign charges that the four counties which contacted voters who had mailed in defective ballots and allowed them to vote provisionally violated the Equal Protection rights of citizens in other counties. Despite the fact that the Secretary of Commonwealth encouraged all the counties to do exactly that.

As the defendant noted in a motion to dismiss filed yesterday:

The Secretary disseminated her guidance regarding this issue to all counties; the fact that some counties opted not to embrace such an option does not mean that those counties that did violated the Constitution. Election practices need not cater to the lowest common denominator, and Plaintiffs’ arguments would improperly penalize those counties that took steps to ensure the enfranchisement of voters by helping them avoid ballot disqualification.

Upon entering his appearance yesterday, Mr. Scaringi requested a postponement of today’s hearing so he could familiarize himself with the case. This motion was immediately denied by Judge Brann, who seemed unimpressed with such a request being issued at 7:40 p.m. on the eve of a 1:30 p.m. hearing.

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Which leaves us with a federal hearing in a critically important — if totally doomed — election case, in which the incumbent president is represented by one attorney who has requested to withdraw her appearance, one attorney who has publicly said the case is crap, and one attorney who hasn’t entered is appearance in a federal court since 1992, already misrepresented himself to the court, and recently got caught by Borat with his hand down his pants.

Because … 2020.


Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.