Rudy Giuliani arrived slightly late to the Washington DC federal courtroom where a defamation lawsuit seeking to force him to pay tens of millions of dollars in damages to two election workers after making inflammatory false statements about them in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Ruby Freedman and her daughter Shaye Moss, the two Black election workers from Fulton county who said they faced death threats because of Giuliani’s claims, were also in the courtroom on Monday.
Giuliani has already conceded he made the defamatory statements and the US district judge Beryl Howell, who is overseeing the case, has already found him liable for defamation, so the week-long jury trial will focus on what penalty he should have to pay. Freeman and Moss are seeking between $15m and $43.5m in damages. Jury selection and opening statements are expected on Monday.
The case is significant because it is one of the most aggressive and advanced efforts to get accountability from Donald Trump allies who spread lies about the election as part of the ex-president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It is one of several cases testing whether defamation law can be used as a new tool to combat misinformation. And perhaps more than any other episode in the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election, it crystallizes the human toll of election denialism. Giuliani also faces criminal charges in Georgia as part of the wide-ranging case there over Trump’s efforts to turn the election.
After the 2020 election, Giuliani had amplified and circulated misleading security footage he claimed showed Freeman and Moss counting ballots after tallying had ended on election night. Even after Georgia election officials quickly debunked the claim, Giuliani continued to spread the false claims.
Freeman and Moss say their lives were upended as they became the subject of vicious attacks. They faced death threats, and strangers came to Freeman’s home to try to execute a “citizen’s arrest”.
Freeman told the US House committee that investigated the January 6 attack that she was afraid to give her name in public. On election night in 2020, she was wearing a shirt that proudly proclaimed her name, but she now refuses to wear it in public.
“I won’t even introduce myself by my name any more. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about people listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I’m always concerned of who’s around me,” she told the committee.
“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”
Moss told Reuters in 2021 that she suffered anxiety and depression, and her son, who used a cellphone with a phone number once registered to her, started receiving death threats and began failing in school.
Both women have not spoken much publicly since the 2020 election, but are expected to take the witness stand this week.
after newsletter promotion
Giuliani has already conceded he made false statements about Freeman and Moss. But he argues that he is not responsible for the harm they suffered as a result of his false statements. “Giuliani will argue that Plaintiffs cannot show more than a de minimis relationship between their alleged harm and Giuliani’s conduct,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing in November.
Giuliani has also already been sanctioned more than $200,000 for refusing to turn over documents as part of the lawsuit. Howell, the judge, also berated Giuliani’s attorney last week after Giuliani failed to show up for a hearing.
He is also expected to testify during the trial, and his lawyer indicated last week that the former New York City mayor does not plan to invoke his fifth amendment rights during the proceeding.
The original lawsuit, filed in December 2021, sought damages from both Giuliani and One America News, the far-right channel that spread countless pieces of misinformation after the 2020 election. Freeman and Moss settled with OAN in 2022. While the terms of the agreement haven’t been publicly disclosed, the network acknowledged on air shortly after that there was no widespread voter fraud in Georgia in 2020.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
