Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani at the funeral service for NYPD police officer Wilbert Mora at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on February 2, 2022 in midtown Manhattan (AP photo). (NYC)
Former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani will not contest a lawsuit claiming he made false statements about two 2020 election workers from Georgia who were unwillingly placed at the center of his now long-debunked claims of rampant voter fraud.
In a two-page “nolo contendre stipulation” entered in federal court in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Giuliani made the significant concession — with caveats — in the long-running defamation case brought against him by former poll workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye Moss.
Freeman and Moss endured a brutalizing series of smears and death threats in 2020 as Giuliani, Trump and several others in the former president’s circles championed claims on Twitter and in the press repeatedly that the women were spotted on surveillance footage sabotaging votes at State Farm Arena in Georgia by stuffing ballots into suitcases. That conspiracy theory has been debunked at length by state and federal investigators.
While the former New York City mayor does not contest that his statements against Freeman and Moss caused the women intentional distress or that his remarks carried a “meaning that is defamatory,” he maintains that his comments are protected under the U.S. Constitution.
“Defendant Giuliani, for the purposes of this litigation only, does not contest that, to the extent the statements were statements of fact and otherwise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false,” the stipulation says. “This stipulation does not affect Giuliani’s […] argument that his statements are constitutionally protected statements or opinions […] or that Giuliani’s statements, in fact, caused Plaintiffs’ any damages.”
Joseph Sibley, Giuliani’s attorney, argued in the filing that his client was not so much admitting that Moss and Freeman’s allegations were true but that the stipulation was a strategic legal decision. By not contesting the defamation allegations any further, it effectively curbs Moss and Freeman from gaining access to other records held by the former mayor in connection to the case.
Possible sanctions against Giuliani have been looming in the matter since early July when U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell warned him that he could be held in contempt of court or face other penalties for failing to produce documents ordered turned over in May.
In a statement to Politico, Giuliani aide Ted Goodman said the issue was a legal one, not a factual one.
Read Related Also: Judge under fire for appearing to check Facebook, search for GIFs during toddler abuse murder trial
“Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case,” Goodman said.
The move to file a so-called “no contest” stipulation in a defamation case is unusual, as “nolo contendere” is normally a strategic legal move in criminal matters.
Both Moss and Freeman told the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol that the swirl of misinformation peddled by Giuliani and the former president completely upended their lives. Moss told investigators during an emotional public hearing that a stranger told her, a Black woman, she was “lucky it is 2020 and not 1920.”
“Another one told me that I should hang alongside my mom for committing treason,” Moss said.
As for the additional records the women seek from the former mayor in the case, Giuliani maintains he never destroyed any evidence. Instead, through his attorney Robert Costello, Giuliani argued Tuesday that devices he turned over to the Justice Department in April 2021, were corrupted and “wiped clean” by the federal government.
The stipulation arrives several weeks after Giuliani’s meeting with Special Counsel Jack Smith in May. Smith is expected to charge Trump and other Trump-world officials as soon as this week for their alleged roles in the fake elector scheme that anchored the former president’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
Read Giuliani’s stipulation, below.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
