Giuliani blames ‘deep state’ after Washington DC panel recommends he be disbarred over false 2020 claims

‘If I were representing an Islamic terrorist, they would make me lawyer of the year’

Days after a disciplinary committee in Washington DC recommended that Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for his spurious campaign to overturn 2020 election results, the former attorney to Donald Trump suggested that the panel is conspiring to prevent any lawyers from representing the former president in the many cases against him.

Mr Giuliani had “no factual basis, and consequently no legitimate legal grounds” to challenge the results of the election in states that Mr Trump lost, while his “frivolous” pursuit to undermine the outcome and disenfranchise voters “seriously undermined the administration of justice,” according to the DC bar committee’s report.

“They’re all Washington lawyers who make big money lobbying congress, setting things up with the government. This is probably a group of people who fear Donald Trump most,” Mr Giuliani told New York’s WABC radio on 10 July.

“If we have a deep state, and we surely do, these are the people who become wealthy as a result of the deep state, so I have to be their second most hated person,” he added.

The preliminary report from a committee with the DC Bar Association, which follows a misconduct hearing in December, is not final; his case will be considered by DC’s Board on Professional Responsibility and by the DC court of appeals.

A move to disbar him is an attempt to “try and discourage lawyers from representing Trump or anybody involved with Trump,” Mr GIuliani said.

“I fully expected it. We are appealing, but I’m not exactly sanguine about that either,” he added. “If I were representing an Islamic terrorist, they would make me lawyer of the year.”

Last week, Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman said in a statement shared with The Independent that the committee is “persecuting” the former mayor “on behalf of the permanent corrupt regime in Washington.”

“This is also part of a larger effort to deny President Trump effective counsel by persecuting Mayor Giuliani – objectively one of the most effective prosecutors in American history,” he added. “I call on rank-and-file members of the DC Bar Association to speak up in defense of Mayor Giuliani and against this great injustice.”

Mr Giuliani’s law license was suspended in New York in 2021 following his “demonstrably false and misleading statements” surrounding the election.

Voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems also filed defamation lawsuits against Mr Giuliani as well as Trump-allied attorney Sidney Powell, conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and Fox News for amplifying false claims that the company argues have severely damaged its reputation, compromised integrity in US elections and fuelled harassment and death threats against its employees.

Mr Giuliani also is wrapped up in a lawsuit filed by Georgia election workers who have accused right-wing conspiracy theorists of fuelling threats against them.

The former mayor of New York City also could face federal charges connected to a sprawling investigation under US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith into the dubious and far-reaching efforts to undermine election results leading up to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6.