Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks during a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).
The attorneys who unceremoniously quit representing Rudy Giuliani in his receivership case concerning the $148 million he owes for defaming two Georgia election workers told the court they were forced to part ways with the former New York City mayor after he informed them that he “would not participate” in discovery for the case. Monday’s ruling to unseal portions of the attorneys’ motions to withdraw was “necessary to protect the integrity of the court and its orders.
“Defendant has informed us that he will not participate in electronic discovery in the Homestead Action,” Attorney Kenneth Caruso wrote in a previously sealed motion for him and co-counsel David Labkowski to withdraw. “Specifically, he has informed us that he will not identify or provide access to his electronic device(s) for imaging by an electronics-discovery vendor, which we have identified. We have a fundamental disagreement with that position. Defendant’s position also constitutes a failure to cooperate with us in the representation and renders it unreasonably difficult for us to carry out our employment effectively.”
The defamed election workers — Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss — have been in ongoing and often contentious litigation with Giuliani to collect on that judgment.
Caruso and Labkowski withdrew last month as Giuliani’s counsel without informing the former New York City mayor of their intention to nix him as a client, citing a professional conduct rule permitting the termination of representation under specific circumstances, including a “fundamental disagreement” with a client, a client insisting on presenting a claim that “cannot be supported by good faith argument,” and when the representation of a client becomes “unreasonably difficult.”
Caruso and Labkowski initially sought to file the motion under seal. U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman rejected the request but allowed a heavily redacted version of the document to be posted to the public docket that did not give specific information about what led to their withdrawals.
The redacted motion may have been left to lie untouched, but Giuliani recently began accusing Caruso and Labkowski of being responsible for his failures to abide by court orders and deadlines.
After being threatened with sanctions and contempt for allegedly failing to respond to the plaintiff’s discovery requests and not turning over personal items owed to the plaintiffs under court orders — Giuliani over the weekend filed a letter with the court unambiguously blaming Caruso and Labkowski for the shortcomings, saying he simply relied on them to respond accordingly.
In doing so, Liman reasoned that Giuliani had effectively waived his attorney-client privilege by impugning his former attorneys, who told the court they quit because Giuliani refused to provide the materials required by the court. The attorneys’ motions “undermine any notion” that Giuliani had been relying on them in connection with the discovery, Liman wrote.
“In fairness, the Court cannot allow Defendant to convey a story to the Court and to the public that Prior Counsel is responsible for his discovery violations while shielding the evidence that — if true — would expose that story as a fabrication,” Liman wrote in an order unsealing four new sentences in the still mostly-redacted motion to withdraw. “Defendant has waived the privilege with respect to his communications with Prior Counsel regarding document production, information requests, interrogatories or the deposition requests.”
The judge said Giuliani cannot make the conduct of his previous attorneys with respect to discovery request responses a “centerpiece of his defense to Plaintiffs’ contempt motion” without also waiving any privilege associated with those communications. Additionally, Liman emphasized that Giuliani misled the court regarding why his attorneys quit in the first place.
“The basis for those motions was not the volume of [discovery] requests made by Plaintiffs, as Defendant now asserts. Defendant knows that assertion to be untrue,” Liman wrote. “The grounds asserted were irreconcilable differences, the insistence of the Defendant upon presenting a claim or defense not warranted by existing law and not supportable by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law, and the failure to cooperate. The motions were supported by declarations from Messrs. Caruso and Labkowski. The declarations, if credited, undermine any notion that Defendant relied upon Prior Counsel in connection with discovery.”
Liman said the court had not reached a decision as to which version of facts he will accept as he contemplates the motion for contempt, but said he would not simply ” ignore the declarations of Prior Counsel and pretend that they did not exist” when they run contra to Giuliani’s latest assertions to the court.
“The Court has a motion for contempt before it and two diametrically opposed sets of declarations,” he wrote. “One declaration proffers what purports to be an innocent explanation for the discovery failures in this case, at least up until the time the motion to withdraw was granted. The second set of declarations can be read to suggest that that explanation is false; that the Defendant has knowingly, willfully, and contrary to advice of Prior Counsel, violated the Court’s orders; and that his current declaration and submission continue to be untrue.”
Giuliani has had a rocky relationship with Liman, even going so far as to interrupt the judge during an in-person hearing last month to exclaim, “You are against me!” to Liman.
Following that hearing, Giuliani spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, where he railed against Liman, accusing the jurist of being an “activist Democrat,” Politico reported. Liman was appointed to the court by Donald Trump in 2019.
“Have you figured out what side he’s on? Are you too dumb to see what side he’s on?” Giuliani reportedly asked. “I’ve been a lawyer for 55 years. I can figure out what side he’s on.”
Giuliani reportedly continued the Liman diatribe as he got on the elevator.
“He doesn’t give a damn about the truth. He just gives a damn about being popular,” adding, “This is lawfare with capital letters.”
