A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Rudolph W. Giuliani was liable for defaming two Georgia election officials by repeatedly stating that they mishandled ballots while counting Atlanta’s votes during the 2020 election.
Judge Beryl A. Howell’s ruling in Washington’s Federal District Court means the defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to stay in power after his election loss, could move to about the narrow question of how much damage, if any, he will have to pay to the plaintiffs in the case.
Judge Howell’s decision came just over a month after Mr Giuliani admitted in two determinations in the case that he made false statements when he accused election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, of tampering with ballots while they were in the State Farm Arena were working. for the Fulton County Election Board.
Mr Giuliani’s legal team has tried to make it clear that he was not admitting any wrongdoing, and that his stipulations were solely intended to short-circuit the costly process of handing over documents and other documents to Ms Freeman and Ms Moss so that he could move on. go roundly denies the allegations.
While the provisions essentially admitted that his statements about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss were false, Mr. Giuliani continued to claim that his attacks on them were protected by the First Amendment.
But Judge Howell, who complained that Mr Giuliani’s provisions had “more holes than Swiss cheese,” took the proactive step by holding him liable for “libel, willful infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and damages claims.”
In a statement, Mr Giuliani’s political adviser Ted Goodman labeled the opinion as “a good example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the trial is the punishment.” He added that “this decision must be reversed as Mayor Giuliani is falsely accused of failing to preserve electronic evidence.”
Judge Howell’s decision to skip the fact-finding stage of the defamation case and proceed directly to a determination of damages came after a protracted battle by Ms Freeman and Ms Moss to force Mr Giuliani to turn over evidence they believed to be they deserved it. part of the discovery process.
In her ruling, Judge Howell accused Mr. Giuliani of merely paying “lip service” to his discovery obligations “by failing to take reasonable steps to preserve or produce large amounts of relevant information.” His repeated apologies and attempts to portray himself as the victim in the case, the judge continued, “thwarted” the “procedural rights of the two women to obtain any meaningful discovery.”
“Putting on a cloak of victimization may work well for a certain audience on a public stage, but in a court of law this performance has only served to undermine the normal process of discovery in an uncomplicated defamation case,” Judge Howell wrote.
The remedy for all this, she added, was that Mr. Giuliani would have to pay nearly $90,000 in legal fees incurred by Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss and would suffer a so-called “default judgment” on the central issue of whether he had defamed the women.
The lawsuit filed by Ms Freeman and Ms Moss in December 2021 was one of the first brought by individual election workers who were the target of criticism and conspiracy theories promoted by right-wing politicians and media figures alleging that Mr Trump had . won the elections. The two women sued other defendants, including the One America News Network and some of its top executives, but eventually settled with all but Mr. Giuliani.
The harassment campaign against Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss came after Mr. Giuliani and others falsely accused them of taking thousands of fraudulent ballots from a briefcase in their vote-counting station and feeding them illegally through voting machines. That campaign’s story was prominently featured in an indictment against Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani, and 17 others filed this month by the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney.
The indictment charged Mr. Giuliani with falsely telling state officials in Georgia that Ms. Freeman had committed election crimes in an attempt to convince them to “unlawfully alter the outcome of the race” on behalf of Mr. Trump. Other members of the criminal enterprise, the indictment said, “traveled from out of state to harass, intimidate, and solicit Ms. Freeman to falsely confess to election crimes she did not commit.”
Last year, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss – mother and daughter – appeared as witnesses at a public hearing of the House of Representatives Committee investigating on January 6 and told what happened after Mr. Giuliani reinforced the false claims about them.
Although Fulton County and Georgia officials immediately debunked the allegations, Mr. Giuliani continued to promote them, eventually comparing the women — who are black — to drug dealers and calling for Georgia state lawmakers to search their homes in a hearing.
Mr. Trump mentioned Ms. Freeman’s name 18 times during a phone conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021. During the phone call, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Raffensperger to help him find 11,800 votes ‘. — enough to challenge the Georgia results of the winner, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“I lost my name, and I lost my reputation,” Mrs. Freeman testified before the House of Representatives panel, adding, her voice trembling with emotion, “Do you know what it feels like to lose the president? of the United States as a target? You?”
Mr. Giuliani has blamed the inability to provide documents to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss on his own financial problems. Facing a series of civil and criminal cases, Mr. Giuliani has earned about $3 million in legal fees, a person familiar with the case said.
He has sought a lifeline from Mr. Trump, but the former president has largely rejected requests to cover Mr. Giuliani’s legal bills. Mr. Trump’s political action committee did pay $340,000 that Mr. Giuliani owed a company that helped him produce documents in several cases, but he had still tried to avoid giving documents to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss. hand, prompting the judge’s ruling on Wednesday.
And the libel suit by the women is just one of many legal problems facing Mr. Giuliani.
In addition to the Georgia charges, Mr. Giuliani is facing a libel suit from Dominion Voting Systems, which has charged him with “a viral disinformation campaign” to spread false claims that the company was part of a complex plot to turn votes away from Mr Giuliani. Trump during the 2020 election.
Last month, a legal ethics committee in Washington said Mr Giuliani should be barred because of his “unparalleled” efforts to help Mr Trump overturn the election.
He was also included as an unnamed co-conspirator in a federal indictment filed this month against Mr Trump by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith that charged the former president with conspiracy to illegally reverse the results of the election. turn.
