NEW YORK • An appeals court suspended Rudy Giuliani from practicing law in New York on Thursday because he made false statements while trying to get courts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the presidential race.

An attorney disciplinary committee had asked the court to suspend Giuliani’s license on the grounds that he’d violated professional conduct rules as he promoted theories that the election was stolen through fraud.

The court agreed and said suspension should be immediate, even though disciplinary proceedings aren’t yet complete, because there was an “immediate threat” to the public.

“The seriousness of respondent’s uncontroverted misconduct cannot be overstated,” the court wrote.

“This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election and of our current president, Joseph R. Biden.”

Trump called the suspension a politically motivated “witch hunt,” while Giuliani said it was a “disgrace” on his afternoon radio show. The court’s opinion, Giuliani said, was based on hearsay and “could have been written by the Democratic National Committee.”

“The bar association should give me an award,” the Republican told listeners on WABC-AM.

“I defended an unpopular client. I’ve been threatened with death. I’ve had a good deal of my income taken away. I’ve lost friends over it.”

“This is happening to shut me up,” he added. “They want Giuliani quiet.”

The court held that Giuliani, as a lawyer for Trump, “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large.”

Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and U.S. attorney in Manhattan, claimed the investigation violated his First Amendment right to free speech and that he did not knowingly make false statements.

The court rejected those arguments, noting that in Pennsylvania, Giuliani failed to “provide a scintilla of evidence for any of the varying and wildly inconsistent numbers of dead people he factually represented voted in Philadelphia during the 2020 presidential election.”

“False statements intended to foment a loss of confidence in our elections and resulting loss of confidence in government generally damage the proper functioning of a free society,” the court wrote.

Interim suspensions are often a precursor to disbarment but are typically “reserved for lawyers convicted of a crime,” said Bruce Green, a former federal prosecutor who directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at the Fordham University School of Law.

“It’s rarely done in cases involving lying lawyers.”

Still, Giuliani will be allowed to fight the suspension and even call witnesses as part of his challenge — a process that could take months to play out — and Giuliani’s attorneys said they expect him to be reinstated “once the issues are fully explored at a hearing.”

“He gets another day in court,” Green said.

The ruling prevents Giuliani from representing clients as a lawyer, but it could have limited practical impact.

Before pleading Trump’s case in November, the former mob prosecutor had not appeared in court as an attorney since 1992, according to court records.

Giuliani was the primary mouthpiece for Trump’s false claims of election fraud after the 2020 vote, standing at a press conference in front of Four Seasons Total Landscaping outside Philadelphia on the day the race was called for Biden and saying they would challenge what he claimed was a vast conspiracy by Democrats.

Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, speaks at a hearing of the Pennsylvania State Senate Majority Policy Committee in Gettysburg, Pa., in November.

the associated press