Judge rules against Rudy Giuliani in Georgia election workers’ defamation suit

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/aug/30/trump-georgia-arraignment-trials-biden-idalia-politics-live-updates In July, Rudy Giuliani admitted in a court filing that he had made false statements about Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, the two Georgia election workers who were suing him for defamation. But as the Guardian’s Michael Sainato reported at the time, an attorney for Giuliani said the admission was just part of their legal strategy. “Mayor Rudy Giuliani did not acknowledge that the statements were false but did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss,” Goodman said. “This is a legal issue, not a factual issue. Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.” That strategy appears to have backfired today, after a judge found Giuliani liable for defaming them and issued a summary judgment against him, which could result in the former Donald Trump attorney paying substantial damages. In a hearing before the January 6 committee last year, Moss and Freeman detailed how the campaign against them upended their lives. Here’s the report from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly on their testimony: In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud. Testifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “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.’” That was a reference to lynching, the violent extra-judicial fate of thousands of Black men in the American south. Moss also said her grandmother’s home had been threatened by Trump supporters seeking to make “citizen’s arrests” of the two poll workers. No Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia since 1992 but Joe Biden beat Trump by just under 12,000 votes, a result confirmed by recounts. In her ruling today, federal judge Beryl Howell ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay $89,172.50 to reimburse attorneys’ fees for the two Georgia election workers who sued him. Decisions are expected later on the exact damages the former lawyer for Donald Trump will be expected to pay.