What Happened to Rudy Giuliani? A Look His Mounting Legal Troubles

In the days after 9/11, as the United States tried to recover from the grief and shock that gripped the country, one man stood strong and tall despite the overwhelming pain felt by all Americans.

Rudy Giuliani had been the 107th mayor of New York City for seven years and had never experienced anything remotely close to this. To comfort the city he loved and the country he was committed to, Giuliani looked to Winston Churchill for inspiration.

"Tomorrow New York is going to be here," he said. "And we're going to rebuild, and we're going to be stronger than we were before... I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world, that terrorism can't stop us."

Nearly 20 years later, he would be known as Trump's flunkey, an embarrassment in most political circles. How did he fall so far?

Giuliani has been the subject of numerous investigations surrounding the attempt to discredit the 2020 presidential election, which has led to criminal charges in both Georgia and Arizona. (He was also ordered to pay $148 million in damages after two former Georgia election workers sued him for defamation.)

He is facing a slew of other lawsuits as well, including another defamation case filed by Dominion in 2021. He was sued in September 2023 by a former lawyer who claimed Giuliani had paid only a fraction of more than $1 million in legal fees racked up from investigations into his efforts to keep Trump in the White House. And in May 2023, a woman named Noelle Dunphy who said she worked for Giuliani sued him alleging he owed her nearly $2 million in unpaid wages and had coerced her into sex. (More on Dunphy later.) Giuliani has denied the allegations.

Giuliani, Trump's former attorney, was also deposed in May 2022 by the January 6 committee, whose findings were released to the public. In June 2022, we learned that on election night, an intoxicated Giuliani was desperate to speak with then-President Trump. During his January 6 Committee testimony, Jason Miller, a senior Trump campaign advisor, said he remembered Giuliani saying, "We need to go and say that we won."

Giuliani, who already had his New York law license suspended in June 2021 following allegations of false statements he made after the election, was disbarred by the state on July 2, 2024.

The ruling from New York's Appellate Division First Department said: "The seriousness of respondent's misconduct cannot be overstated. ... Respondent not only deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession, but he also actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 Presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant."

Giuliani's law license in D.C. was also previously suspended.

Noelle Dunphy alleged that Giuliani sexually harassed her while she worked for him under his company's toxic conditions. She also says she was fired from her job and told to keep quiet.

The summons filed by Dunphy stated that "despite attempting to cultivate a public image of himself as 'America’s Mayor,' Giuliani frequently made racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ, and misogynistic remarks, often during confused and hostile alcohol-laced tirades."

The summons also alleged that Giuliani's drinking grew increasingly worse in the two years Dunphy worked there, often beginning when he woke up and continuing throughout the day.

While speaking to The Daily Beast, Dunphy revealed that she was "romantically involved" with Giuliani. "It began with Rudy as my boss and lawyer, and later turned romantic," she told the outlet. She said that eventually his overtures turned manipulative and abusive.

It should be noted that, in 2015, Dunphy "filed a federal suit under the pseudonym Jane Doe against a real estate investor, alleging that he viciously and repeatedly abused her." (They eventually settled out of court.)

Dunphy explains in the summons that, in January 2019, Giuliani offered free legal advice in connection with a case "surrounding assault and abuse that she suffered as a victim of domestic violence." She claims his advances left her "revictimized, retraumatized, left without legal redress, and substantially worse off than before Giuliani agreed to represent her in hopes of securing justice against an abuse." She is seeking $3.1 million in damages.