Rudy Giuliani is disbarred in New York for spreading Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies

WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani, the disgraced former New York City mayor who tried to overturn former President Donald Trump’s election loss, was disbarred in the state of New York on Tuesday, yet another repercussion for the team that spread lies about mass voter fraud after Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.

Giuliani, who is facing charges in Georgia and Arizona and is an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal election interference case brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith, had no “good faith basis” to believe the lies he spread about the election, according to an order entered Tuesday. Some of the false statements cited by a New York appeals court were comments Guiliani made during a post-election press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping which took place at the same time that some new outlets called the election for Biden.

“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,” the decision from a New York appeals court read.

Giuliani has arguably faced much wider repercussions for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election than Trump himself. He also faces disbarment in Washington, where the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility recently recommended that Giuliani be disbarred.

In May, Giuliani was suspended by WABC radio and had his show cancelled for continuing to make false statements about the 2020 election, which could have potentially opened the station up to legal liability.

Two Georgia poll workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — were awarded $148 million by a jury after a federal judge found Guiliani liable for falsely accusing them of election fraud, allegations which had zero factual basis. Because of surveillance video that had spurred conspiracy theorists online, Giuliani had falsely accused the mother-daughter duo of passing around USB drives “like vials of heroin or cocaine,” when, in fact, they were passing a ginger mint. The allegations set off a wave of racist attacks and threats against the pair.

In the course of the New York disciplinary case, Giuliani stipulated to the reality that there were not, in fact, many thousands of votes cast in the names of dead people in Philadelphia during the 2020 election, as he’d previously falsely claimed. The referee overseeing the proceedings, the order noted, found “16 acts of falsehoods carried out” by Giuliani “were deliberate and constituted a transparent pattern of conduct intended and designed to deceive.”

The decision also accused Giuliani of attempting to deceive officials during the disciplinary process.

Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Giuliani, called the decision “politically and ideologically corrupted” and “flawed.”

Barry Kamins, a former judge and attorney for Giuliani, said his team is “weighing our appellate options” and that “Mr. Giuliani is obviously disappointed in the decision.”