Matter Of Giuliani

Facts

D was admitted to practice as an attorney and counselor at law in the State of New York on June 25, 1969, under the name Rudolph William Giuliani. He maintains a law office within the First Judicial Department. The AGC seeks D's immediate suspension from the practice of law in the State of New York. D claims that the AGC's investigation into his conduct violates his First Amendment right to free speech. The AGC primarily relies on claims that D made false and misleading factual statements to cast doubt on the reliability of the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joseph R. Biden was constitutionally certified and then inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. D repeatedly stated that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania more absentee ballots came in during the election than were sent out before the election. The factual 'proof' he claimed supported his conclusion was that although Pennsylvania sent out only 1,823,148 absentee ballots before the election, 2,589,242 million absentee ballots were then counted in the election. This factual statement regarding the number of ballots mailed out before the election was simply untrue. The facts are that 3.08 million absentee ballots were mailed out before the general election, which more than accounted for the over 2.5 million mail-in ballots that were tallied. D repeatedly advanced false statements that there were 600,000 to 700,000 fabricated mail-in ballots, which were never sent to voters in advance of the election. D made these false claims during his November 8, 2020 radio program. D does not deny that his factual statement, that only 1.8 million mail-in ballots were requested, was untrue. His defense is that he did not make this misstatement knowingly. D claims that he relied on some unidentified member of his 'team' who 'inadvertently' took the information from the Pennsylvania website, which had the information mistakenly listed. The above-identified misstatements violate Rules of Professional Conduct 4.1 and 8.4(c). On November 17, 2020, D appeared as the attorney for a matter captioned Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v Boockvar (Boockvar), in the United States District Court. He was admitted pro hac vice based on his New York law license. D repeatedly represented to the court that his client was pursuing a fraud claim when indisputably it was not. D's client had filed an amended complaint before the November 17, 2020 appearance in which the only remaining claim asserted was an equal protection claim, not based on fraud at all. The claim concerned the experience of two voters having their mail-in ballots rejected and challenged the notice and cure practices concerning mail-in ballots in different counties. D insisted on extensively arguing a fraud case based on the withdrawn canvassing claims. D's mischaracterization of the case was not simply a passing mistake or inadvertent reference. Fraud was the crown of his personal argument before the court that day. D claimed that the allegations in the complaint concerned 'widespread, nationwide voter fraud of which this is a part.' D persisted in making wide-ranging conclusory claims of fraud in Pennsylvania elections and other jurisdictions allegedly occurring over a period of many years. D repeatedly stated that dead people 'voted' in Philadelphia in order to discredit the results of the vote in that city. He quantified the amount of dead people who voted at various times as 8,021; while also reporting the number as 30,000. As the anecdotal poster child to prove this point, he repeatedly stated that famous heavyweight boxer Joe Frazier continued to vote years after he was dead and stated on November 7, 2020 'he is still voting here.' The public records submitted on this motion unequivocally show that D's statement is false. Public records show that Pennsylvania formally canceled Mr. Frazier's eligibility to vote on February 8, 2012, three months after he died. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 8.4(c). These misstatements violate RPC 3.3 because they were made before a tribunal. These misstatements violate RPC 4.1 because they were made to third parties consisting of over 3,700 members of the press and the public. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c ). D made extensive and wide-ranging claims about Dominion Voting Systems Inc.'s voting machines manipulating the vote tallies to support his narrative that votes were incorrectly reported. Georgia, however, had completed a hand count of all ballots cast in the presidential audit. The hand audit, which relied exclusively on the printed text on the ballot-marking device, or bubbled-in the choice of the absentee ballot, confirmed the results of the election with a zero percent risk limit. D's statement that the vote count was inaccurate, without referencing the hand audits, was misleading. By law, this audit was required to take place following the election and be completed no later than December 31, 2020. D's statements were made while the hand audit was proceeding and after it concluded. We understand that Dominion has sued D for defamation in connection with his claims about their voting machines. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c). At various times, D claimed that 65,000 or 66,000, or 165,00 underage voters illegally voted in the Georgia 2020 election. The Georgia Office of the Secretary of State undertook an investigation of this claim. It compared the list of all of the people who voted in Georgia to their full birthdays. The audit revealed that there were zero (0) underage voters in the 2020 election. While a small number of voters (four) had requested a ballot prior to turning 18, they all turned 18 by the time the election was held in November 2020. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c). D stated to lawmakers, and the public at large, that more than 2,500 Georgia felons voted illegally. The Georgia Secretary of State also investigated this claim. By comparing lists from the Departments of Corrections and Community Supervision, with the list of people who actually voted in November 2020, the Secretary of State identified a universe of 74 potential felony voters, who were then investigated. Even if all 74 identified persons actually voted illegally, the number is nowhere near the 2,500 that D claimed and the number would, in any event, be statically irrelevant in supporting a claim that the election was stolen. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c). D stated that dead people voted in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election. He claimed that he had the names of 800 dead people who voted based on the number of people who had passed away in 2020. D further stated that this number was really in the thousands. At another point, he claimed that 6,000 dead people had voted. This claim was refuted by the Georgia Secretary of State. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c). After reviewing public records, the Secretary of State concluded that potentially two votes may have been improperly cast in the name of dead voters in the 2020 election and those instances were being investigated. D represented that video evidence from security cameras depicted Georgia election officials engaging in the illegal counting of mail-in ballots. The gist of his claim was that illegal ballots were being surreptitiously retrieved from suitcases hidden under a table and then tabulated. In fact, the entirety of the videos shows the 'disputed' ballots were among those in a room filled with people, including election monitors, until about 10:00 pm. At about 10:00 p.m., the boxes - not suitcases - containing the ballots were placed under a table in preparation for the poll watchers to leave for the evening. Those boxes were reopened and their contents retrieved and scanned when the state official monitor intervened, instructing the workers that they should remain to tabulate the votes until 10:30 p.m. that evening. When viewed in full context and not as snippets, the videos do not show secreting and counting of illegal ballots. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c). D made false and misleading statements that 'illegal aliens' had voted in Arizona during the 2020 presidential election. On November 30, 2020, D appeared before a group of Arizona legislators at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Phoenix. It was acknowledged during that session that no statewide check on undocumented noncitizens had been performed. In other words, there was no data available from which to draw any conclusion about undocumented noncitizens. D persisted in stating, during that same session, that there were 'say' five million 'illegal aliens' in Arizona and that '[i]t is beyond credulity that a few hundred thousand didn't vote . . . .' Undeterred by the lack of any empirical evidence, in a December 17, 2020 episode of Chat with the Mayor, respondent queried 'Do you think more than 10,000 illegal aliens voted in Arizona?....We know that way more than 10,000 illegal immigrants voted.' During an appearance on the War Room podcast on December 24, 2020 D once again claimed with respect to the number of undocumented noncitizens who voted in Arizona that 'the bare minimum is 40 or 50,000, the reality is probably about 250,000 . . . .' He then used these unsubstantiated figures to support a claim that Trump won Arizona by about 50,000 votes. After the New Year, in another episode of the War Room podcast, the number of 'illegal immigrants' D was claiming had voted illegally changed yet again. This time D claimed there were 32,000 such illegal votes. D admitted in the podcast that he did not have the 'best sources' to justify this estimate, but stated that he was relying on 'newspaper and records' for his claims (id.). D later either reiterated and/or agreed with statements made by others, that undocumented noncitizens had voted in Arizona in the 2020 election; he made these statements during the March 9th, 11th, and April 27, 2021 broadcasts of his Chat with the Mayor radio show and on April 21, 2021, during an appearance on the War Room podcast. The above-identified misstatements violate RPC 4.1 and RPC 8.4(c ). D made these misstatements most recently after the AGC brought this motion for his interim suspension. The AGC has identified other instances of D's misconduct. We make no substantive decision on those additional claims at this time because the record is insufficiently developed on those claims in this motion for interim relief. The additional claims may be part of any formal charges that the AGC will interpose in the full disciplinary proceeding that will follow this interim suspension.

Issues

Rule of Law

Holding and Decision

Legal Analysis

© 2007-2024 ABN Study Partner.