'Brutal': Rudy Giuliani mocked after blistering takedown from the D.C. Bar Association
Slate's Jeremy Stahl wrote Monday that the Washington, D.C. Bar Association hasn't been as kind as New York when it comes to Rudy Giuliani.
Two years ago, New York suspended the former federal prosecutor and so-called "America's Mayor" from ever practicing law. But now, Giuliani is being recommended for disbarment after the three-member panel voted unanimously to stop Giuliani from his ability to practice law. Now that their full report is being released, it reveals the methodology behind the decision in a blistering takedown.
"The D.C. allegations focus on Giuliani’s efforts in Pennsylvania to overturn Biden’s roughly 80,000-vote victory in the state based on nothing more than conjecture," wrote Stahl. "While an investigatory panel issuing a pitiless smackdown of Giuliani’s 2020 post-election conduct is nothing new at this point, this latest recommendation (much like the previous New York ruling) shines a spotlight on how corrupt Giuliani’s litigation strategy for Trump in 2020 was and offers an appropriate remedy."
But what he found particularly amusing is that the Bar admonished Giuliani in a fairly funny way.
On the matter of Giuliani's false voter fraud claims, the Bar panel cited an incident in Pennsylvania when Trump was protesting the 2020 election results claiming fraud. The lawsuit had fraud allegations cited, but they'd apparently been “wrongly deleted.” The “corrected” version “contained only vague and speculative allegations about random and isolated electoral irregularities which did not and could not support [Giuliani’s] inflated legal claims.”
When it comes to Giuliani's basis for a lawsuit, the Bar found it was "thoroughly without merit." Giuliani was miffed that "election observers" in the state had the physical distance in the ballot-counting rooms. Giuliani thus believed that everything was corrupt and all votes had to be thrown out and Donald Trump made the winner.
Giuliani’s accusations “were simply not true,” the Bar said. In fact, “Mr. Giuliani did not offer any evidence that fraudulent mail-in votes were actually cast or counted.” Oddly, Giuliani then told the Bar panel that it didn’t matter both party observers had to keep a distance, because “Democrats weren’t allowed to see it because they couldn’t count on the fact that all Democrats are crooked.”
Giuliani’s thought “was premised on a conclusive presumption of irregularity, i.e., the wholly unfounded supposition that observational boundaries necessarily led to fraudulent counting of mail-in ballots to favor President Biden.”
Giuliani swore he met with observers in Philadelphia that "unearthed credible proof" of "widespread fraud." The Bar found "clearly and convincingly disclosed that there was no such evidence: [Giuliani] based the Pennsylvania litigation only on speculation, mistrust, and suspicion."
Giuliani also claimed that he was required to sue, even if he didn't have proof, which the panel said simply, "We reject this argument." Giuliani went on to then claim that legal filings were really nothing more than wild guesses, which again, is questionable. They also complained that Giuliani turned over discovery evidence after the deadline and in the middle of the hearing.