Rudy Giuliani is clearly trying to be the first attorney to get the death penalty in an attorney grievance case. This week he’s showing his whole ass in an administrative hearing to defend his license to practice law in DC, which was suspended after the state of New York preliminarily booted him over his effort to get the election results overturned in Pennsylvania in 2020.
Giuliani’s offensive conduct, other than spray tanning his bald head a frightening shade of orange, included filing an entirely frivolous lawsuit seeking to get a federal judge to throw out all mail-in ballots in the state’s two largest municipalities. Giuliani’s case in chief rested on two main claims: 1) that the canvass was illegal because the Republican observers were placed too far from the counting, and thus any votes tabulated must be thrown out; 2) some counties allowed voters who hadn’t signed their ballot envelopes to cure them and/or cast provisional ballots, which violated equal protection because some counties did not allow it.
As to the first, there was no exclusion of Republican observers, as Rudy continues to insist until this day. All the observers were placed at a distance because of COVID restrictions, something the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said was fine, actually. And anyway, even if there were some technical violation, it could not possibly justify jettisoning hundreds of thousands of legally cast ballots.
As to the second, a federal judge held just a month before Trump and his pal Rudy filed this dumb turkey of a lawsuit that it did not violate the law for local election officials to allow ballot cure. So the complaint rested on misrepresentations of both fact and law, which is not great if you’re, say, the high profile lawyer who inexplicably makes yourself the face of it.
There never was any THERE there with this suit, which left Rudy to fill in the blanks where competent argument and citations of law and precedent should be with extended ranting about a nationwide scheme of voter fraud perpetrated by Democrats. And as of today, he’s still ranting.
In dismissing the Pennsylvania case, US District Judge Matthew Brann wrote:
Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens.
That has not happened. Instead, 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.
In yesterday’s hearing, before the DC Board on Professional Responsibility of the DC Bar, disciplinary counsel Hamilton Fox argued that Giuliani “weaponized his law license,” making allegations which had no basis in fact or law in an attempt to disenfranchise voters and keep Trump in office. Giuliani responded by restating those allegations at length, much to the exasperation of both Fox and Robert Bernius, the disciplinary board’s chair. Trump’s former lawyer defended himself by saying that the case was filed under severe time constraints, and so he didn’t have to argue with specificity that fraud took place — he could just lob wild allegations and talk about Mayor Daley in Chicago and the Democratic machine.
For instance, Fox pointed to an affidavit filed in the case which pointed to an Uber driver’s offhand statement that there were dozens of people wearing Black Lives Matter gear (or maybe just black clothes) staying at a hotel in Philly, describing it as “common knowledge” that BLM sends groups of ineligible voters in to cast ballots in Philly.
“Do you think that is reliable evidence of fraud in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania?” Fox demanded.
“I don’t know, we would find out. We would certainly follow up on this,” Giuliani insisted.
Lawsuits are not a fishing expedition. You have to show up with plausible, specific allegations, as someone who has been a lawyer for five decades ought to know well. There were one or two other indications yesterday that the former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York may have lost a step or two, though.
At the conclusion of Monday’s hearing, Giuliani looked down at his wrist and exclaimed on a hot mike, “You know, I have two watches on!” only to clamp his hand over his mouth after his attorney John Leventhal elbowed him sharply.
America’s Mayor: sound of mind, body, and … spirits.
[Law & Crime / WaPo / CNN]
Follow Liz Dye on Twitter!
Click the widget to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty. And if you’re ordering from Amazon, use this link, because reasons.
