- Rudy Giuliani appeared on Newsmax Thursday to discuss the suspension of his New York legal license.
- He said it came because he was so effective at arguing for Trump’s baseless election-fraud claims.
- Those claims have been defeated in a series of court cases.
Rudy Giuliani said Thursday the suspension of his license to practice law in New York was part of a plot to silence him because he was so effective at arguing former President Donald Trump’s election-fraud claims.
Giuliani appeared on the right-wing Newsmax network hours after an appellate court in New York suspended his law license.
“Well, I’m not very happy about this,” he said of the suspension.
-Newsmax (@newsmax) June 25, 2021
“All I can say is, America is not America any longer,” Giuliani added. “We do not live in a free state. We live in a state that’s controlled by the Democrat Party.”
He went on to suggest that the suspension was a way of silencing him for “so effectively” arguing for Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him as a result of mass fraud.
“We have a double standard,” he said, adding that if he had been representing Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, he would not have been suspended.
“I represented my client so effectively that they’re trying to get me to shut up because they know what’s going to happen – because they did it – they know what’s going to happen in Arizona, and they know what’s going to happen in Georgia. And they want this mouth shut,” he said.
He was apparently referring to an audit commissioned by Trump allies of President Joe Biden’s win in Arizona last year, which has been widely described by observers, and even some state GOP officials, as shambolic. A similar push by Trump supporters in Georgia has unearthed no evidence of widespread election fraud.
Giuliani spearheaded the Trump campaign’s legal fight to overturn Biden’s victory last year.
The campaign mounted dozens of challenges, which were defeated or withdrawn, to the election result in states including Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia. The Supreme Court has thrown out two legal challenges to the election results.
In explaining the decision to suspend Giuliani’s license, the New York court on Thursday cited his promotion of Trump’s election-fraud conspiracy theories. It said he had made false claims about thousands of fake ballots being counted during the election.
The suspension marks a dramatic reversal for Giuliani, who made his name as one of New York City’s top US attorneys and led the Southern District of New York in the 1980s. He went on to serve as New York City mayor, earning global acclaim for his leadership after the 9/11 attacks.
But he has faced legal troubles over his work as Trump’s personal attorney.
He faces a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from two election-technology companies over baselessly claiming they were used to switch millions of votes during last year’s election.
The FBI raided Giuliani’s apartment and offices earlier this year in a separate investigation into whether he was working on behalf of pro-Russian officials in Ukraine in 2019 when seeking the firing of the US ambassador to Ukraine at the time.
Giuliani has denied wrongdoing in those cases.
Read the original article on Business Insider
