New York Supreme Court Appellate Division First Department It began with the New York State Bar Association announcing an inquiry into wh…

Source: OTHERWISE: Lawyers – en masse – call for Giuliani to be disciplined, suspended

It began with the New York State Bar Association announcing an inquiry into whether it should expel the former United States Attorney, Mayor of New York, and personal counsel to a President Rudy Giuliani.  The Trump confidant had fallen into disrepute as he played a role in the sixty failed lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign to somehow undermine the results of an election which the sitting lost by over seven million votes.  The movement gained momentum and gravity after the former prosecutor at the now notorious January 6 White House rally warmed up the soon to be riotous mob by declaring ““Let’s have trial by combat.””

Donald Trump’s narrow margins in a handful of states presented a theoretical path to snatch an electoral college victory from a popular vote defeat. Giuliani was coordinator of unsuccessful electoral challenges in a dozen states, according to Democracy Docket which itself coordinated Democratic Party defenses.  Things quickly went badly for Giuliani;s efforts as even conservative judges spurned the efforts to discount votes.  In a key state – Pennsylvania District Judge Matthew Brann, a former GOP official, repudiated the action saying

…this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.

Brann was quickly affirmed by a conservative panel of the Third Circuit which wrote  “Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.” 

Criticism mounted but it was the January 6 rally which pushed things off a cliff.  Two carefully crafted and detailed letters to New York disciplinary authorities in the First Department of the Appellate Division of New York Supreme Court have demanded action against Giuliani.  The first was filed by former Massachusetts Attorney General and Common Cause President Scott Harshberger on behalf of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, Inc.  The LDAD complaint, co-signed by dozens of prominent lawyers, former prosecutors and judges has now garnered over 4,000 signatures.  Citing factually and legally groundless litigation to invalidate millions of votes Harshberger et al. call for Giuliani to be suspended while the “Committee… investigates”.

Another complaint, filed the next day by Ronald C. Minkoff, of New York, and co-signed by dozens of prominent lawyers and academics, is brought on behalf of Michael Miller, a past President of both the New York State Bar Association and the New York County Lawyers Association.  The carefully drafted and comprehensive complaint centers on the Pennsylvania action and the January 6 “attempted insurrection”. It calls for unspecified discipline against Giuliani, a New York attorney for KEEP READING:

OTHERWISE: Lawyers – en masse – call for Giuliani to be disciplined, suspended