Giuliani found liable of defaming Georgia election workers

Rudy Giuliani Wednesday was found liable by a federal judge for defaming two Atlanta election workers whom he and President Donald Trump falsely accused of acting to rig the 2020 election in Georgia for President Biden.

A federal judge issued a withering so-called default judgment against Giuliani, ruling that he brazenly refused to produce evidence to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, the workers who gained nationwide attention from their testimony before the congressional Jan. 6 committee.

The ex-New York City mayor now faces a trial to determine the amount of damages he must pay Freeman and Moss.

“Rudy Giuliani helped unleash a wave of hatred and threats we never could have imagined,” the mother and daughter wrote in a statement. “The fight to rebuild our lives and reputations is…one step closer. And for that, we’re grateful.”

U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell mocked Giuliani for a last-ditch claim last month that he could avoid providing evidence as ordered by the court, without also admitting guilt.

“Giuliani’s stipulation has more holes than Swiss cheese,” Howell wrote.

Giuliani was also ordered to pay more than $130,000 in legal fees and other costs to Freeman and Moss.

Howell excoriated Giuliani for “donning a cloak of victimization” while avoiding even the most basic legal responsibilities.

“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 wrote.

Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Giuliani, predicted the ruling would be reversed on appeal.

“(It) is a prime example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the process is the punishment,” Goodman said.

Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani over his repeated false claims that they had been caught trying to illegally tip the vote count to Biden‘s favor while working as Fulton County election workers during the 2020 vote count.

Giuliani and Trump accused the mother and daughter of being criminals and compared them to drug dealers for handing one another what they claimed were fake votes loaded onto a USB stick.

It turned out they were passing a mint candy.

The women grabbed the nation’s sympathy when they testified on national TV about how the false claims turned their lives upside down forever.

“It changed my life in every way,” Moss said, wiping away tears.

Giuliani, who is selling his Manhattan co-op, faces more that financial penalties for his smears of Freeman and Moss. He is also charged along with Trump and 17 co-defendants in the sprawling Georgia racketeering election interference case.

The campaign of lies against the election workers is mentioned in an indictment as one the so-called “overt acts” that helped Trump allegedly try to overturn his loss in the 2020 vote.

Along with Giuliani, three other co-defendants are charged with harassing the election workers in an effort to get them to falsely “confess” to cheating for Biden.

Like others, Giuliani faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison if convicted under Georgia’s tough RICO law.

He is seeking to get his part of the racketeering case moved to federal court by arguing that he was acting as a federal agent at Trump’s behest. Legal analysts give Giuliani long odds of success, although Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has a stronger claim, they say.