My new column on The Hill expands on yesterday’s revelations about Rudy Giuliani’s responsibility for the Big Lie, explaining his abuse of the judicial system to give a veneer of legitimacy to Trump’s phony claims of voter fraud. Here is the gist:
Jan. 6 and the dishonor that will remain
BY STEVEN LUBET, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/14/22
Rudy Giuliani may not be the greatest villain in the story of the riot at the U.S. Capitol, but he is certainly among the most dishonorable. As we learned at yesterday’s second hearing of the House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, it was an “inebriated” Giuliani who urged Trump on election night to begin claiming that the election had been stolen. Then he made it worse.
Relying on his unique credibility as a once-respected and accomplished lawyer, Giuliani soon raised the phony arguments about so-called voter fraud in federal court, which initially gave the false allegations a veneer of legitimacy. If not quite the originator of the “Big Lie” – that was Trump himself – Giuliani was one of its earliest super-spreaders.
But winning the case was never the point. No halfway-decent lawyer could have believed it might succeed; Trump’s Attorney General William Barr called the legal arguments “bullshit.” The real objective of the litigation was to begin the process of undermining public confidence in the election, setting up Trump’s refusal to leave office. The courtroom was just a stage for declaiming baseless conspiracy theories. Giuliani’s case was not merely frivolous; it was devious.
You can read the full essay at The Hill.
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