Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani (Seth Wenig/AP/File)
A jury has ordered Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer, to pay $148.1 million to two former Georgia election workers whom he defamed as part of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.
Judge Beryl A. Howell, of the Federal District Court in Washington, had already ruled that Giuliani had defamed Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.
After a four-day trial, the jury ordered Giuliani to pay compensatory damages of $16.2 million to Freeman and $16.9 million to Moss, and $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering. They added $75 million in punitive damages.
Freeman said, “Today’s a good day. A jury stood witness to what Rudy Giuliani did to me and my daughter and held him accountable, and for that I’m thankful.”
However, she noted, “Money will never solve all my problems. I can never move back into the house that I call home. I will always have to be careful about where I go and who I choose to share my name with. I miss my home, I miss my neighbors, and I miss my name.”
Outside the courthouse, Giuliani repeated his lies and said, “I don’t regret a damn thing.” While he said the attacks and threats against Freeman and Moss were “abominable” and “deplorable”, he insisted that he was not responsible for them.
Giuliani, Georgia, and the Wider Trump Plot
Giuliani’s defamation was part of a campaign by Trump and his inner circle, including his lawyers, to reverse the outcomes in closely-contested states in the 2020 election: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
Within hours of the November 3 vote, Trump proclaimed that the ballot was fraudulent, with manipulation of voting machines to switch millions of votes to Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Two recounts in Georgia upheld Biden’s 11,779-vote margin, but Trump and Giuliani persisted. Trump called Georgia’s top election officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, demanding that they “find 11,780 votes” to give him victory. Giuliani spread disinformation, including the lies that Freeman and Moss had pulled out boxes of ballots to award them to Biden and that Freeman had given Moss a USB drive with the altered vote totals.
The officials in Georgia and in other states held firm, maintaining Biden’s 306-232 triumph in the Electoral College. Trump and his allies then planned to block Congressional confirmation of the result, leading to the Capitol Attack of January 6, 2021.
In August, a court in Fulton County, Georgia indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants, including Giuliani, of a “criminal racketeering enterprise”. The case — one of four criminal proceedings against Trump, with a total of 91 indictments, is expected to go to trial in 2024.
“Send a Message”
In their testimony during the trial, Freeman and Moss vividly described the emotional toll of the abuse after they were named by Giuliani.
The women said they were were assailed with expletive-laden phone calls and messages, threats, and racist insults. Attackers said they should be hanged for treason or lynched, and fantasized about hearing their necks snapping.
The abusers showed up at Freeman’s home and tried to execute a citizen’s arrest of Moss at her grandmother’s house. They disrupted the virtual education of Moss’s 14-year-old son with relentless phone calls, contribution to his failing grades in his first year of high school.
Freeman said, “This all started with one tweet”, as the jury was shown Giuliani’s message:
WATCH: Video footage from Georgia shows suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table AFTER supervisors told poll workers to leave room and 4 people stayed behind to keep counting votes.
(Trump’s YouTube account still features the disnformation, “Video from GA shows suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table AFTER poll workers left.”)
Attorney Michael J. Gottlieb said in his closing argument to the jury:
Send [a message] to Mr. Giuliani. Send it to any other powerful figure with a platform and an audience who is considering whether they will take the chance to seek profit and fame by assassinating the moral character of ordinary people.
Moss said after the verdict, “Our greatest wish is that no election worker or voter or school board member or anyone else ever experiences anything like what we went through.”
The former New York City mayor damaged his defense by verbally assailing the women in a rant outside the courthouse on Monday. His lawyer Joseph Sibley said on Tuesday that Giuliani would testify; however, as his client continued his tirades, Sibley said on Thursday that Giuliani would not take the stand.
Giuliani’s net worth is unknown because he refused to meet the court’s requirement to provide financial information. He is likely to file for bankruptcy protection, but this would not erase his liability to Freeman and Moss.
In April, Dominion Voting Systems — accused by Giuliani and the Trump camp of flipping ballots from Trump to Biden — obtained a $787.5 million settlement from Fox TV over the outlet’s promotion of the lies.
Freeman said outside the courthouse:
Today is not the end of the road, we still have work to do. Rudy Giuliani was not the only one who spread lies about us, and others must be held accountable too.
