Rudy Giuliani’s “false and misleading” claims about the 2020 election have already led to the suspension of his licenses to practice law in New York and Washington D.C., but an editorial board argued in a column Sunday that the blowback against Donald Trump’s lawyer shouldn’t stop there.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested in an Aug. 15 op-ed that Giuliani should be disbarred in every state for spreading “fake news” and lying about the 2016 and 2020 elections. The editorial board pointed out that Giuliani recently admitted to federal agents that it was OK to “throw a fake” on television during the campaign and spread lies about political opponents like Hillary Clinton.
“Full disbarment remains a hopeful possibility. The legal profession and the nation has had enough of this man’s fake news,” the Post-Dispatch editorial board wrote.
“After his election antics last year, it should be beyond serious debate that Rudy Giuliani is a liar,” the Post-Dispatch editorial board wrote. “Even so, it’s startling to read how casually former President Donald Trump’s lawyer admitted to federal agents that he lied to the public during Trump’s earlier election campaign of 2016.”
The Washington Post reported Aug. 11 that Giuliani admitted to spreading fake news during a Feb. 2018 interview with agents for the Justice Department inspector general. His partner Marc Mukasey, who was present at the time, added, “You’re under no obligation to tell the truth” to voters.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also argues that in addition to his lies about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Giuliani should face more consequences for his role “helping motivate” the attack on the U.S. Capitol earlier this year.
“In multiple news conferences and court hearings, he alleged with zero evidence that Trump’s loss was the result of rampant fraud — helping motivate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection,” the op-ed continued. “Among the lies he promoted was an unhinged conspiracy theory alleging that Dominion Voting Systems changed votes to swing the election. There’s no evidence of this whatsoever; even Giuliani isn’t currently claiming there is.”
The paper’s editors argued that Giuliani shouldn’t be allowed to practice law anywhere given his track record and personal pending legal issues.
The former New York City Mayor and federal prosecutor is facing a $1.3 billion lawsuit from voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems, which sued him for defamation in January. Right-wing news outlets Fox News, Newsmax and OANN are also facing similar lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic, another voting machine company. Last May, Fox News Media filed a motion to dismiss the Dominion lawsuit, stating that the manufacturer failed to identify “any actionable defamation.” This followed the move to dismiss the Smartmatic lawsuit in February, which Fox News called “meritless.”
Giuliani is also being investigated by the Justice Department for his dealings with the Ukraine on behalf of President Trump — it’s been reported Giuliani asked Ukranian officials to investigate Joe Biden for Trump before the 2020 election, though Giuliani denies that ever happened.
What the local paper may lack in circulation (roughly 105,931 on Sundays), it makes up for in prestige — the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has won 19 Pulitzers since the year the prizes began in 1917. More recently, metro columnist Tony Messenger won for his coverage of low-income Missourians’ encounters with the legal system. In 2015, the Post-Dispatch’s photography staff won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for its photos of the riots in Ferguson.
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