Tag Archives: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani now the target

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” — President Harry S. Truman

Important Takeaways:

  • Rudy Giuliani, a target in Atlanta probe into Trump 2020 election subversion scheme, appears before grand jury
  • Rudy Giuliani, who was told by Atlanta prosecutors that he is a target in their probe of former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion schemes in Georgia, appeared behind closed doors for grand jury testimony in the investigation Wednesday.
  • Bob Costello, an attorney for Giuliani, told CNN he would not provide any details about what Giuliani was asked and how he responded.
  • Among the potential crimes Willis is investigating is making false statements to state and local government bodies, as well as solicitation of election fraud, and conspiracy.

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Missing Jan. 6 defense lawyer is recovering from illness, judge is told

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer who recently disappeared from public view while representing 17 defendants facing charges related to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot was “beginning to feel better” but also “very sick,” a federal judge was told on Thursday.

At a status hearing for Peter Schwartz, an Owensboro, Kentucky, man facing 14 riot-related charges, including felonies, Ryan Marshall, an associate of John Pierce, the lawyer who represents Schwartz and 16 other riot defendants, said he spoke to Pierce on Tuesday evening and the absent lawyer said he was “beginning to feel better.”

But Marshall said he then spoke to a friend of Pierce on Wednesday who told him Pierce remained “very sick” and had spent most of Wednesday asleep.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said that because Marshall was not a lawyer, if necessary the court would appoint a lawyer to temporarily represent Schwartz if Pierce’s health status remains unclear.

Prosecutors have cited conflicting news reports about Pierce’s health problems. Some reports said Pierce had contracted COVID-19. An NPR reporter said last week that a friend of Pierce’s told him Pierce did not have COVID-19 but was hospitalized due to “dehydration and exhaustion.” That same reporter on Thursday said another source told him Pierce contracted COVID-19 but was not on a ventilator.

Among the Jan. 6 riot defendants Pierce represents are members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper militia groups.

Pierce also has represented Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, and Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old facing homicide charges stemming from protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Prosecutors have alleged that during the Jan 6 riot, Pierce’s client Schwartz violently “assaulted multiple law enforcement officers by spraying them with a chemical agent believed to be pepper spray.”

Schwartz has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest in February.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Howard Goller)

Giuliani’s law license suspended over Trump election claims

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Rudy Giuliani’s New York law license was suspended on Thursday, after a state appeals court found he had lied in arguing that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from his client, former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Giuliani, 77, a former U.S. Attorney in Manhattan and New York City mayor, was punished for making “demonstrably false and misleading” statements that widespread voter fraud undermined the election, which Democrat Joe Biden won.

Citing the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Appellate Division said Giuliani’s eagerness to trumpet false claims “immediately threatens the public interest” and could erode public confidence in the election process, a hallmark of American democracy, as well as the legal profession.

“This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election and of our current president, Joseph R. Biden,” the court said.

“Where, as here, the false statements are being made by (Giuliani), acting with the authority of being an attorney, and using his large megaphone, the harm is magnified.”

Speaking to reporters outside his home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a combative Giuliani called the suspension “a one-sided decision not based on evidence.”

The Republican also blamed Democrats for his growing legal troubles, including over his dealings in Ukraine, and he said dozens of witnesses could back up his election fraud claims.

“I fight back. That’s what I do,” Giuliani said. “I go to court and I prove what I’m telling you in court. There are appellate courts. This isn’t yet a dictatorship.”

In a statement, Trump expressed disbelief that Giuliani could lose his law license for “fighting what has already been proven to be a Fraudulent Election.”

The appeals court said Giuliani’s temporary suspension could become permanent after a hearing by the attorney grievance committee that recommended it.

John Leventhal and Barry Kamins, two lawyers for Giuliani, said they were disappointed with the suspension but believed that after a hearing he would be reinstated as “a valued member of the legal profession that he has served so well.”

‘INCREDIBLY SERIOUS’

Giuliani’s other legal problems include a $1.3 billion lawsuit where Dominion Voting Systems accused him of defamation for claiming its machines helped flip votes to Biden from Trump.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are separately examining Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, including whether he violated lobbying laws while working as Trump’s lawyer.

Eighteen devices, including cellphones and computers were seized in April 28 raids of Giuliani’s home and office for the Ukraine probe. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing.

The appeals court said Giuliani made numerous false statements about voting in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, including over the counting of absentee ballots.

It highlighted a Pennsylvania court hearing on Nov. 17 where Giuliani alleged widespread voter fraud, though his formal written complaint on Trump’s behalf made no mention of it.

The court also criticized Giuliani’s unsubstantiated claims of voting by dead people, including the boxing heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, who died in 2011.

“There is evidence of continuing misconduct, the underlying offense is incredibly serious, and the uncontroverted misconduct in itself will likely result in substantial permanent sanctions,” the court said.

Though the court rejected Giuliani’s claim that the grievance committee violated his free speech rights, the suspension does not muzzle his ability to speak publicly.

That contrasts with Twitter’s permanent ban and Facebook’s two-year suspension of Trump from their respective platforms.

Brian Faughnan, a Tennessee lawyer specializing in attorney disciplinary proceedings, said suspensions such as Giuliani’s often go to lawyers who commit crimes or stole client money.

Giuliani received his law license in 1969, and as New York City mayor won wide praise for his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

He began representing Trump in April 2018 as federal Special Counsel Robert Mueller was probing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel, Karen Freifeld and Andrew Hofstetter in New York, and Jan Wolfe in Washington; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Noeleen Walder)

Trump lawyer Giuliani faces $1.3 billion lawsuit over ‘big lie’ election fraud claims

By Jan Wolfe and Susan Heavey

(Reuters) – A U.S. voting machine company filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against former President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of defamation in what it called his “big lie” campaign about widespread fraud in the presidential election, court documents on Monday showed.

The Denver-based company, Dominion Voting Systems Inc, filed an earlier lawsuit against Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, whom the company also accused of spreading false conspiracy theories about the election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

A senior Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, also filed a defamation lawsuit against the Trump campaign, saying he had been driven into hiding because of death threats from Trump supporters.

Giuliani and his lawyer, Robert Costello, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Giuliani has stood by his claims about the election, saying during a radio show last week he is being attacked for “exercising my right of free speech and defending my client.”

Trump and his allies spent two months denying his election defeat, and claiming that it was the result of widespread voter fraud.

Dominion is seeking $1.3 billion in damages from the former New York City mayor, alleging in the lawsuit that “he and his allies manufactured and disseminated the ‘Big Lie,’ which foreseeably went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election.”

Dominion said it filed the lawsuit “to set the record straight” and to “stand up for itself, its employees, and the electoral process.”

A group of prominent attorneys last week asked New York’s judiciary to suspend Giuliani’s law license because he made false claims in post-election lawsuits and for urging Trump’s supporters to engage in “trial by combat” shortly before they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Dominion states in its lawsuit that it has spent $565,000 on private security to protect its employees, who are facing harassment and death threats.

“Giuliani’s statements,” the lawsuit stated, “were calculated to — and did in fact — provoke outrage and cause Dominion enormous harm.”

Founded in 2002, Dominion is a major U.S. manufacturer of voting machines, and various Dominion machines were used in more than two dozen states during the 2020 election.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Jan Wolfe in Boston; Editing by Lisa Lambert and Chizu Nomiyama)

Trump campaign drops Michigan lawsuit: statement

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign said on Thursday it was withdrawing its lawsuit disputing vote results in Michigan, in another legal attempt to challenge the Nov. 3 victory of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.

“This morning we are withdrawing our lawsuit in Michigan as a direct result of achieving the relief we sought: to stop the election in Wayne County from being prematurely certified before residents can be assured that every legal vote has been counted and every illegal vote has not been counted,” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in a statement.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Options dwindling, Trump faces likely setback in Georgia recount

By Andy Sullivan and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. presidential election battleground state of Georgia is expected on Thursday to affirm Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump after a painstaking recount, which would deal yet another setback to the president’s attempts to cling to power.

Georgia’s top election official, a Republican, has said the manual recount of almost 5 million votes is unlikely to erode Biden’s initial 14,000 winning margin by enough to hand Trump victory in the state.

That would leave Republican Trump with a dwindling number of options to overturn the results of an election in which Democrat Biden won 5.8 million more votes nationwide. Barring a series of unprecedented events, Biden will be sworn in on Jan. 20.

In the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner, Biden has captured 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, well ahead of the 270 needed for victory. The winner in each state is awarded that state’s electoral votes, a number roughly proportional to the population.

Flipping Georgia’s 16 votes would still leave Trump at least two closely contested states away from overturning Biden’s victory. Georgia officials say they expect to release results on Thursday ahead of a certification deadline on Friday.

In Pennsylvania, where Biden won by 82,000 votes, the Trump campaign is asking a judge to declare him the winner there, saying its Republican-controlled legislature should choose the state’s slate of 20 Electoral College voters.

In Wisconsin, the Trump campaign has paid for a partial recount, even though election officials there say that will likely only add to Biden’s 20,000-vote advantage in a state that carries 10 electoral votes.

‘A DEEPER PROBLEM’

Trump’s campaign has filed lawsuits in a number of other states, including Michigan, with scant success so far.

Those legal motions, sprinkled with factual errors, have been dismissed by Biden’s campaign as “theatrics” that are not based on sound law.

Several prominent law firms have pulled out of the operation, leaving Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to spearhead the efforts.

Trump said on Twitter on Thursday that lawyers would discuss a “viable path to victory” at a news conference at noon ET (1700 GMT).

State and federal election officials, as well as outside experts, say Trump’s argument that the election was stolen from him by widespread voter fraud has no basis in fact.

However, it does appear to be affecting public confidence in American democracy. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday found about half of Republicans believe Trump “rightfully won” the election.

Arizona’s top election official, Democrat Katie Hobbs, said she and her family had been getting violent threats and urged Trump to stop casting doubt on the result, in which he lost by just over 10,000 votes.

“(The threats) are a symptom of a deeper problem in our state and country – the consistent and systematic undermining of trust in each other and our democratic process,” Hobbs said in a statement.

Trump, who has largely stayed in the White House and kept out of public view since the election, has no public events scheduled for Thursday.

His administration has so far refused to recognize Biden as the winner, which has held up funding and security clearances to ease the transition from one president to another ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration.

Biden said on Wednesday that the delay was preventing his team from planning a new assault on surging coronavirus infections, which is straining the U.S. healthcare system.

(Writing by Andy Sullivan and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Ross Colvin, Lincoln Feast and David Clarke)