Giuliani testifies for 11 hours in ethics probe over false Trump election claims with his law license on the line

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Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani testified for 11 hours to defend his role in former president Donald Trump’s effort to challenge the 2020 presidential election results, as the Washington DC Bar has called for his law license to be revoked.

Mr Giuliani testified before the DC Board on Professional Responsibility of the DC Bar. The former mayor and attorney for the former president reportedly attempted to minimise his role in a lawsuit that alleged that Pennsylvania’s election had multiple cases of voter fraud after President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, The Washington Post reported.

Hamilton “Phil” Fox III, the lead prosecuting attorney for the bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, called Mr Giuliani’s claims “unfounded” and said he misrepresented the fact that Pennsylvania had begun using mail-in ballots and the Covid-19 pandemic forced independent observers to socially distance from poll workers while opening mail-in ballots and while they reviewed signatures.

Mr Fox said Mr Giuliani “weaponised his law license by filing a frivolous lawsuit” and should have his license revoked.

“There was no case in law nor fact for which Mr. Giuliani set forth on grounds of fraud,” he said.

Mr Giuliani and his attorney John Leventhal argued that Mr Trump asked Mr Giuliani to join the case the day after the election and to “quickly” get up to speed on results in Pennsylvania, as well as at least 10 other states, including Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, North and South Carolina and New Mexico.

Mr Leventhal said that because Mr Trump’s legal challenge did not move forward, the DC Bar had no reason to revoke Mr Giuliani’s law license.

“The complaint was not accepted. This was never accepted by the court,” he said.

Mr Giuliani also sought to downplay his role, saying under questioning by Mr Fox that another attorney drafted the initial fraud complaint while he added “a few paragraphs.”

Mr Giuliani expressed outrage and said he was unfairly targeted.

“I am shocked and offended this is happening to me,” he said. Mr Giuliani said that observers who were supposed to view mail-in ballots were not allowed to get close to people counting votes and “were being put in pens like they were cows.”

“The only thing we had at this stage of the litigation was that in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, we had a number of ballots that were being counted without any inspection by an independent party,” he said. “You have to plead fraud with specificity with what you have, with what is available. But in discovery you get the additional information. This was specific enough for this stage of the pleading. That’s why it’s evidence, and not a conclusion.”

The hearing committee will recommend whether Mr Giuliani should be penalised after it hears evidence next week.