New York, N.Y. – Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), a non-partisan national group of lawyers, filed an 18-page ethics complaint today against Rudolph W. Giuliani with the Grievance Committee of the New York courts.
The complaint calls for the Committee to investigate Mr. Giuliani for his false public claims, on behalf of former President Trump, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by fraud, and for filing lawsuits without legal or factual support.
The complaint seeks an investigation and an immediate suspension of Mr. Giuliani’s license to practice law while the investigation is pending.
Early signers of the complaint include prominent lawyers, leaders of the bar, and former judges from New York and elsewhere across the country, including former officials of the Department of Justice and Assistant U.S. Attorneys from the Southern District of New York, the office Mr. Giuliani once led. LDAD expects thousands of additional lawyers to add their signatures to the complaint in the next several days.
Professor Stephen Gillers, an ethics expert from NYU Law School , who has reviewed the complaint, said:
“In his extensive court filings and public statements baselessly challenging the legitimacy of the election, and by urging “trial by combat” to impede the operation of the Constitution and laws of the United States, Rudolph Giuliani has behaved disgracefully. The Committee, which is an arm of the New York courts, must now investigate whether this conduct renders him unfit for the honor of New York bar membership and suspend him while doing so.”
Scott Harshbarger, Chairman and co-founder of LDAD , said: “Lawyers have a legal responsibility to enforce the rule of law. There must be accountability for misconduct which is so obvious and consequential. He claimed Mr. Trump was a victim when he was the one trying to disenfranchise tens of millions of American voters.”
Harshbarger is a former two-term Massachusetts Attorney General and former president of the National Association of Attorneys General. LDAD Steering Committee member Christine H. Chung, a former federal prosecutor and war crimes prosecutor , stated:
“No one knew better than Mr. Giuliani, who once headed our nation’s greatest prosecuting offices, what is and is not proof of fraud. Rather than stepping back from lying at the President’s bidding, as other lawyers did, he aided and abetted him.” LDAD filed an ethics complaint in July 2020 against former Attorney General William Barr with the District of Columbia bar disciplinary authorities.