Rudy Giuliani disbarred in Washington, DC

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been disbarred in Washington, DC after fighting to maintain his membership in the district’s bar association after seeing it first suspended.

"It is ordered that Rudolph W. Giuliani is hereby disbarred from the practice of law in the District of Columbia," the court order stated. Giuliani’s disbarment order for Washington, DC, is retroactive and so affects any legal matters that he was hired to pursue going back to Aug. 9, 2021. 

The DC Board of Professional Responsibility wrote in a May report on disbarring Giuliani, "Disbarment is the only sanction that will protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession, and deter other lawyers from launching similarly baseless claims in the pursuit of such wide-ranging yet completely unjustified relief," according to CBS News. The board said he should lose his license over alleged efforts to reverse the election results in Pennsylvania.

The decision from the Washington, DC appellate court came after Giuliani’s arrest in Fulton County when he was accused of interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the state. A court ordered Giuliani to pay $148 million in a defamation case from two Georgia election workers while a judge ruled in July that the former mayor is not entitled to bankruptcy protection.

The order comes after Giuliani was disbarred in the state of New York in July. The ruling stated that "The disciplinary charges stem from the allegations 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."

The DC Appeals Court ruled that under reciprocity between DC and New York, Guiliani should be disbarred in DC as well. The order stated that Giuliani had the opportunity "to show cause why reciprocal discipline should not be imposed" but a response was reportedly not filed. Giuliani's law license was suspended in the district in July 2021.

Giuliani's radio show was abruptly pulled from the air in May by John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of WABC, because he claimed the former mayor had violated an agreement that he not mention the 2020 election fiasco on air.