Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s License To Practice Law Suspended; and The Capital Riot Aftermath Evaluation: Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler

Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s License To Practice Law Suspended

Two weeks ago former president Donald Trumps attorney Rudy Giulianis license to practice law was suspended. The disciplinary committee of the New York City appellate division court where Giuliani had been licensed to practice law ruled that he communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers, and the public at large in his capacity as a lawyer for Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trumps failed effort at reelection in 2020. In addition, on January 6, the committee took notice of Giulianis urging the crowd in Washington DC make law by engaging in combat.

The disciplinary committee found that Giulianis conduct immediately threatened the public interest in warranted interim suspension for the practice of law. Giuliani became the first attorney to experience professional consequences for perpetuating lies about fraud in the 2020 election.

He had been the main prosecutor in the Southern District of New York before becoming mayor. After 911 he was widely viewed as a hero and denominated Americas mayor. He went on to practice law representing a number of corporations and becoming rich before becoming Trumps attorney.

Guest – Professor and attorney Ellen Yaroshefsky. She is one of the signatories to one of the complaints against Giuliani. Professor Yaroshefsky is the Howard Lichtenstein professor of legal ethics at Hofstra Law School and the Director of the Monroe Friedman Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics.

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The Capital Riot Aftermath Evaluation: Attorney Margaret Ratner-Kunstler

At the same time we have a radicalization of the left we also have one on the right. The one on the right has been building for 40 years. A right wing racist nationalist demagogue, Donald Trump, got 74 million votes in the last election. People and organizations supporting Trump and egged on by him ransacked the Capital on January 6.

The military was an active participant by refusing cars to intervene to stop the invasion of the building, Barry Shepard wrote in Green Left Weekly. They stood by for some four hours. Eventually it was the Washington DC police who finally ended it.
Caroline Or, writing in Byline Times wrote that the Capital riot was not a spontaneous outburst of violence, but rather a carefully orchestrated, well-funded attempt to violently overthrow the election and bring an end to democracy in America. Further, she wrote that there is a close alliance between violent extremist and mainstream factions of the Republican Party, including wealthy donors and elected officials.

The Republicans in Congress succeeded in blocking a proposal to convene a bipartisan committee to investigate the interaction. For his part, Biden has avoided talking about it in an evident attempt to assure his allies overseas that America is still a democracy.
Who did it, what did they hope to accomplish, love and what has been done by way of an investigation and criminal prosecution?

Guest – human rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler who has worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights and is the editor of the recent book In Defense of Julian Assange.


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