The Daily Fuckup

Rudy Giuliani’s post-election work for Donald Trump was already carrying direct professional consequences by July 25, 2021. The New York Appellate Division had issued an interim suspension on June 24, and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals later imposed a reciprocal suspension on July 7, keeping him out of practice there while the New York matter moved forward. The orders did not decide every question about eventual discipline, but they did make one thing clear: bar authorities had found enough in Giuliani’s conduct to suspend him pending further proceedings.

The New York court said there was uncontroverted evidence that Giuliani, acting as a lawyer for Trump and the Trump campaign, made demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers, and the public in connection with Trump’s failed effort to overturn the 2020 election. The court described those statements as part of an effort to bolster the claim that the election had been stolen. In New York, the suspension was interim, not final, meaning the disciplinary process was still underway.

Washington moved after New York did. The D.C. Court of Appeals suspended Giuliani from practice there while the New York case remained unresolved. That left him facing discipline in two jurisdictions at once, with the D.C. action tied to the New York proceeding rather than a separate merits finding on the underlying election claims. For a lawyer who built his public identity around prosecutors’ offices, courtroom authority, and institutional credibility, the sequence was a serious blow.

Giuliani had been one of Trump’s loudest and most visible messengers after the 2020 vote. He appeared in court settings, at public events, and across media platforms arguing that the election had been tainted by fraud. The New York court’s ruling, however, put his role in a different light: not as ordinary advocacy, but as conduct that the court said crossed professional lines. By late July 2021, the legal fallout was no longer hypothetical. It was already in place.