• Bar association seeking to ban Rudy Giuliani over his remarks before riot.
President’s lawyer told supporters ‘let’s have trial by combat’
NEW YORK
Rudy Giuliani is facing possible expulsion from the New York State Bar Association over incendiary remarks he made to President Donald Trump’s supporters last week before they violently stormed the U.S. Capitol.
The organization said Monday that it has opened an inquiry into whether Giuliani should remain a member.
In a prepared statement, Scott Karson, the association’s president, said that his decision to begin the inquiry was prompted by hundreds of complaints the group had received about Giuliani’s central role in Trump’s attempts to overthrow the results of the election.
On Wednesday, Giuliani addressed a crowd of Trump’s supporters near the White House, repeating Trump’s claims of election fraud then appearing to urge people toward violence. After hearing Giuliani and the president speak, members of the crowd marched to the Capitol and a mob ransacked the building.
“If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we’re right a lot of them will go to jail,” Giuliani said. “Let’s have trial by combat.”
Removal from the bar association, a voluntary membership organization dating to 1876, is not the same as being disbarred and banned from practicing law. That can only be done by the courts.
But should the highly unusual investigation by his peers lead to his removal from the group, it would be a stain on a career that has spanned more than 40 years in the law.
A spokesperson for the group said that it had not removed someone who had not already been disbarred since 1904.
The association’s bylaws forbid members from, among other things, advocating “the overthrow of the government,” and in his statement Karson said that Giuliani’s words in Washington last week were “clearly intended to encourage Trump supporters unhappy with the election’s outcome to take matters into their own hands.”
“The subsequent attack on the Capitol was nothing short of an attempted coup,” Karson wrote, “intended to prevent the peaceful transition of power.”
A message seeking comment was left with Giuliani’s spokesperson. The bar association said he will be afforded due process and be given a chance to explain and defend his words and actions.
State Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Democrat, separately made an official complaint on Monday to the
state’s courts, asking that disbarring Giuliani be taken up for consideration.
Among the people calling for the bar association to remove Giuliani were U.S. Reps. Mondaire Jones, DN.Y., and Ted Lieu, D-Los Angeles, who send a letter to
the organization last week saying that his actions were “absolutely disqualifying from remaining in good standing.”
In a statement Monday, Jones said “Giuliani is an embarrassment to attorneys everywhere” and called on the state’s courts to disbar him to ensure that he will “never again use his law degree to destroy lives and undermine our democracy.”
The bar association isn’t the only organization reconsidering its ties to Giuliani.
Middlebury College in Vermont said Sunday it is weighing whether to revoke an honorary degree given in 2005 in recognition of Giuliani’s leadership during the 9/ 11 attack.
The investigation was only the latest example of efforts to push back against lawyers who have supported Trump’s push to remain in power.
Last week, Dominion Voting Systems sued the president’s onetime lawyer, Sidney Powell, for defamation, claiming she had engaged in “a viral disinformation campaign” about the role its machines played in election.