First Department Spanks Rudy Guiliani. Does He Care? You Bet.

The court found that Giuliani committed such egregious violations of the rules of professional conduct that his immediate suspension was necessary to avoid 'continuing misconduct.'

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Imagine being a priest for decades, moving up to becoming bishop, then suddenly being defrocked. You lose your status, your identity, and a large part of your power. It’s got to smart.

Now picture Rudy Giuliani — the former head attorney of the Southern District of New York, mayor of the country’s largest city, hero of 9/11 — screwing up so thoroughly that the highest ethics board in the state, the Attorney Grievance Committee (AGC), moved the court to have him immediately suspended from practicing law.

That’s exactly what happened last week in a per curiam decision by the Appellate Division of the First Department, in which the court said, “The seriousness of [Giuliani’s] uncontroverted misconduct cannot be overstated.”  For an attorney, it doesn’t get much worse than that, short of criminal charges.

The court found that Giuliani committed such egregious violations of the rules of professional conduct that his immediate suspension was necessary to avoid “continuing misconduct.” Eventually, a full disciplinary hearing will be held where both sides will present further evidence. Until then, Giuliani can no longer be known as an attorney, or call himself such in any format, media, or manner. He’s been defrocked.

Interim suspension is a serious remedy, the court noted. “Available only in situations where it is immediately necessary to protect the public.”

Why does the public need protecting from the former mayor? Because, as the opinion goes on to say, Giuliani has a “large megaphone,” thereby magnifying the harm he’s caused and will likely still cause.

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The gist of the charges against him concerns his misrepresentations about the 2020 election. In many different venues — newscasts, podcasts, social media, rallies, and hearings — Giuliani promoted the falsehood that the election was fraudulent, stolen from his friend and benefactor, former president Donald Trump.

He hit on this theme in so many ways and in so many forums that the court found overwhelming evidence that there was no way Giuliani didn’t know the statements he made were false at the time he made them. (Giuliani’s putative defense.)

Here are some examples cited by the court:

  • Dead people voted, including Joe Frazier.

“He is still voting here,” Giuliani said on November 7, 2020, regarding the former heavyweight boxer. Meanwhile, records submitted by the AGC unequivocally showed that Pennsylvania formally canceled Frazier’s eligibility to vote on February 8, 2012, three months after he died.

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  • 6,000 dead people voted in Georgia.

After reviewing public records, the Secretary of State concluded that potentially two votes may have been cast in the name of dead voters.

  • Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens voted in Arizona.

Giuliani drew this conclusion from thin air, extrapolating from the number of illegal aliens believed to live in Arizona. As the court put it, “Undeterred by lack of any empirical evidence,” Giuliani stated in his podcast, “Chat with the Mayor,” that “with 5 million illegal aliens in Arizona, it is beyond credulity that a few hundred thousand didn’t vote.”

  • 2,500 Georgia felons voted illegally.

Again, simply untrue. The Georgia Secretary of State identified 74 potential felony voters.

  • Votes were hidden under a table in Georgia.

Giuliani based this claim on snippets from a full videotaping of the counting of votes in that state. What the full video (available to the public) shows is that boxes were put under the table at the end of the day, then retrieved when workers were told to go back and continue counting.

Giuliani admitted he didn’t have the “best sources” to justify the numbers he relied on to make these far-reaching claims of voter fraud. However, he made them just the same. The court found that, in part, his claims inspired the violence against the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election […]. The hallmark of our democracy is predicated on free and fair elections. False statements intended to foment a loss of confidence in our elections and resulting loss of confidence in government generally damage the proper functioning of a free society. When those false statements are made by an attorney, it also erodes the public’s confidence in the integrity of attorneys admitted to our bar and damages the profession’s role as a crucial source of reliable information. It tarnishes the reputation of the entire legal profession and its mandate to act as a trusted and essential part of the machinery of justice.”

Being a lawyer is supposed to mean something. Ethics rules compel us to be honest to our clients, to the courts, and to the public. That’s whether we’re in court, out of court, appearing in the media, or at a party. Giuliani’s reliance on his First Amendment freedom of speech is misplaced, the court said.  Attorney’s speech is subject to greater regulation than speech by others, it added. “Unlike lay persons, an attorney is a professional trained in the art of persuasion.”

Our words carry greater weight and therefore greater potential for harm. Put that training in the wrong hands — a guy with a giant ego, a worldwide platform, unlimited access to the media, and a direct connection to a man with an even larger ego, power base, and following –- and it makes sense that Giuliani’s right to practice law should be stripped. Permanently.

He gives us all a bad name.


Toni Messina has tried over 100 cases and has been practicing criminal law and immigration since 1990. You can follow her on Twitter: @tonitamess.