Rudy Giuliani: Legally Liable In Harassed Election Workers’ Defamation Case
[guest post by Dana]
Holding Rudy Giuliani accountable:
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Rudy Giuliani is legally liable for defaming two Georgia election workers who became the subject of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election that were amplified by Donald Trump in the final weeks of his presidency.
In an unsparing, 57-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell said Giuliani had flagrantly violated her orders to preserve and produce relevant evidence to the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, resulting in a “default” judgment against him. She also ordered him to pay Freeman and Moss “punitive” damages for failing to fulfill his obligations.
ORDERED that default judgment will be entered against defendant Rudolph W. Giuliani on his liability for plaintiffs’ defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and punitive damage claims, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37(e)(2)(C) and 37(b)(2)(A)(vi);
As a reminder, this is what Shaye Moss said happened to her as a result of Giuliani (and Trump’s) reprehensible lies and vile harassment of her:
At the urging of her boss, Moss said she checked her Facebook messages and there “were just a lot of horrible things there.” They included “a lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”
“A lot of them were racist, a lot of them were just hateful,” Moss said.
She said her son also received threats and that at one point, people went to her grandmother’s house and tried to make a “citizen’s arrest.”
As a result of the harassment and for her safety, the FBI then instructed Ruby Freeman to leave her home. Here is a snapshot of her response to the events:
“It was horrible,” Freeman said. “I felt homeless. I can’t believe this person [Trump] has caused this much damage to me and my family, to have to leave my home.”
Freeman said she lost her reputation and a sense of security because Trump and Giuliani “decided to scapegoat me and my daughter to push their own lies about the election being stolen.”
“There is nowhere I feel safe, nowhere,” Freeman said. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American — not to target one. But he targeted me — Lady Ruby, a small-business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stand up to help Fulton County run an election in the middle of the pandemic.”
"I've lost my name, and I've lost my reputation. I've lost my sense of security — all because a group of people… scapegoat[ed] me and my daughter, Shaye, to push their own lies about how the Presidential election was stolen."
– Ruby Freeman, former Georgia election worker pic.twitter.com/jEVvW85ZJX— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 21, 2022
Judge Beryl Howell wrote:
“Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straight-forward defamation case, with the concomitant necessity of repeated court intervention.”
Howell said that aside from an initial document production of 193 pages, the information Giuliani had turned over consisted largely of “a single page of communications, blobs of indecipherable data” and “a sliver of the financial documents required to be produced.”
The order is here.
Only the best people…right.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (4020dd) — 8/30/2023 @ 11:19 amRelated:
Don’t light any matches near Rudy.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/30/2023 @ 11:27 amI hope she takes his last dime.
Barry Jacobs (2b0ba8) — 8/30/2023 @ 11:45 amI’ve said this before, but I fail to understand how people like him get to this point.
After 9/11, he was set. He could pull in huge contracts on his name for little more than showing up. Just act like a respectable patrician, give a speech once in a while, and spend his golden years however he liked.
Except he apparently really liked giving interviews while drunk, farting up courtrooms (both literally and figuratively), and tormenting innocent people in the service of a failed casino operator’s autogolpe.
I just do not understand some people.
john (aff6cb) — 8/30/2023 @ 11:59 amHe was immensely popular then, too, but that didn’t satisfy his greed and ego. He needed more.
Dana (4020dd) — 8/30/2023 @ 12:11 pmGiuliani did not originate the story of the ballots in suitcases, which he was still talking about on his radio show recently.
I’m not clear what information he was supposed to preserve, and when he was told to do so.
Is this because he had no good evidence, or because there was something he definitely had (like emails or text messages from other people) that he failed to produce?
I remember he expected Sidney Powell to produce evidence of vote fraud – he relied entirely on her – and broke off contact with her when she didn’t. (Trump maintained conntactz0
Sammy Finkelman (f37bf5) — 8/30/2023 @ 12:32 pmAfter 9/11, he was set.
john (aff6cb) — 8/30/2023 @ 11:59 am
Not only was he set. He was respected. He had made NYC safe again.
Had he just enjoyed his retirement, like you said, his legacy would have been honorable.
When I see how Trump has corrupted guys like Giuliani, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Mike Lee, I just shake my head. All of them are guys I would have voted for at one time.
norcal (40e732) — 8/30/2023 @ 12:43 pmGiuliani conceded (or decided not to contest without admitting that he was definitely wrong) back in July that his statements about election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss “carry meaning that is defamatory” so the trial will be only about the amount of damages. He also has or had a legal defense that he wanted to preserve, that they were constitutionally protected statements or opinions.
here was also the discovery issue about electronic records.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 8/30/2023 @ 1:31 pmWater main break. Yep. Keep going.
NJRob (18aba0) — 8/30/2023 @ 1:49 pmThe water main break could theoretically be only part of an attempt to steal votes. But they never produced anything about any other part, except maybe misrepresenting what those two election workers did.
. And there are lots of cross checks.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 8/30/2023 @ 2:42 pmTrums lawyers tried to use Viktor Shokin:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/29/dc-judge-apparently-strikes-viktor-shokin-affidavit-from-trumps-jan-6-docket
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 8/30/2023 @ 2:44 pmYep, water main break, around 6am on Election Day, which delayed counting for a couple hours. The GOP-run Secretary of State’s chief investigator filed an affidavit that affirmed the incident and also concluded that there were no breaks in the chain of custody at State Farm Arena.
There’s some overlap between the Alex Jones and Rudy Giuliani defamation cases. Leaving aside Rudy’s too-clever-by-half stipulation, they were both found liable by default because they refused to comply with discovery requests by the court. My guess is that, for both slanderers, producing discovery materials would’ve been worse for their cases than stonewalling.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 8/30/2023 @ 3:28 pmLOL! Everything except the kitchen sink.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/30/2023 @ 3:43 pmEverything Trump Touches Dies.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 8/30/2023 @ 3:49 pm“Donald Trump will betray his supporters on every issue.” Ted Cruz, April, 2016. The last honest thing he ever said.
Barry Jacobs (0eed2b) — 8/30/2023 @ 4:31 pmOuch! The following describes the judge’s probable instructions to the jury that will be seated to find the amount of damages (and punitive damages) now that the facts of the case have been settled by the default judgement:
Kevin M (ed969f) — 8/30/2023 @ 6:19 pmEverything Trump Touches Dies.
Trump IS the anti-Christ.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 8/30/2023 @ 6:20 pmproducing discovery materials would’ve been worse for their cases than stonewalling.
He is also hiding his assets from the court.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 8/30/2023 @ 6:22 pmI’ll give Trump a pass (of sorts) on this one.
Giuliani was never a good person. Trump did not corrupt him; he was already corrupt. They just drifted into each other’s orbits like binary brown dwarfs.
nk (ef2db6) — 8/30/2023 @ 7:04 pmI agree that Rudy has his own agency in this, but I think it’s more like binary white dwarfs, one of which thinks it’s a good idea to glom onto (i.e., accrete mass from) the other. Inevitably the accreting star detonates in a supernova while the companion star sits chuckling and refuses to pay the corpse star’s legal bills.
lurker (cd7cd4) — 8/30/2023 @ 9:00 pmWell, actually only one of those stars is a white dwarf. The other is a big, beautiful, dominant supergiant that all the other stars admire. Until it goes boom. Later people come and strip the corpse of the dwarf for its valuables.
Kevin M (ed969f) — 8/30/2023 @ 10:49 pmnorcal (40e732) — 8/30/2023 @ 12:43 pm He was respected. He had made NYC safe again.
Sammy Finkelman (f37bf5) — 8/31/2023 @ 6:30 am