Giuliani loses defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers

August 31, 2023

A federal judge has determined that Rudy Giuliani has forfeited the defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers against him,—a decision that could lead to significant penalties for Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, reports CNN.

Giuliani lost the case because he struggled to maintain access to his electronic records—partly because of the cost—and couldn’t adequately respond to subpoenas from attorneys for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss as the case moved forward.

The mother and daughter are asking for unspecified damages after they say they suffered emotional and reputational harm, as well as personal endangerment, after Giuliani singled them out when he made false claims of ballot tampering in Georgia after the 2020 election.

A trial to determine the amount of damages for which Giuliani will be held liable will be set for later this year or early 2024, Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court said on Wednesday, August 30.

The damages could amount to thousands if not millions of dollars.

Giuliani already has been sanctioned almost $90,000 for Freeman’s and Moss’s attorneys’ fees in the case, and Howell says the former New York mayor may be saddled with additional similar sanctions.

Giuliani has been struggling financially, buried under 2020 election legal proceedings, a new criminal case against him in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the election, and other matters. He has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges in Georgia and has been released from jail on bond.

Late last month, Giuliani conceded that he made defamatory statements about Freeman and Moss and that he didn’t contest their accusations that he had smeared them after the 2020 election.

Giuliani’s statements about them, which Freeman and Moss say are false, included calling them ballot-stuffing criminal conspirators. Giuliani also drew attention to a video of them after the election, which was first posted by the Trump campaign and showed part of a security tape of ballot counting in Atlanta. On social media, his podcast, and other broadcasts, Giuliani said the video showed suitcases filled with ballots, when it did not capture anything but normal ballot processing, according to the defamation lawsuit and a state investigation.

Georgia election officials have debunked Giuliani’s accusations of fraud during the ballot counting.

The mother-daughter duo has been candid about how their lives were impacted by Trump and Giuliani’s claims that they were guilty of election fraud.

“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?” Freeman said last year in video testimony to the House select committee that investigated the events surrounding the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Moss said her privacy was destroyed when she learned that Giuliani had accused her mother, Freeman, of passing some kind of USB drive to her like “vials of cocaine or heroin” as part of an elaborate vote-stealing scheme.

In reality, the object in question was a ginger mint.

In his controversial call when he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find votes to help him overturn his 2020 loss, Trump attacked Moss 18 times, and the former president called Freeman a “professional vote scammer” and a “hustler.”

“I felt horrible. I felt like it was all my fault,” Moss said during her testimony last year. “I just felt like it was, it was my fault for putting my family in this situation.”

She added that she and her mother were afraid to go outside or to the supermarket after getting threats “wishing death upon me, telling me that, you know, I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like—‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”

During Giuliani’s disinformation campaign about the vote in Georgia, the FBI recommended Freeman leave her home for her own safety, according to the lawsuit.

Research contact: @CNN

September 26, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday, September 25—fielding questions on her economic agenda, former President Donald Trump’s economic plans, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D), reports The Hill

.The MSNBC interview was a friendly forum for the vice president, who has been under pressure to ramp up her media presence. Harris sat down with Ruhle in Pittsburgh, following an economic-focused speech in which she laid out a framework for her manufacturing agenda.

Here are five takeaways from Harris’s interview on MSNBC:

Harris lays out pricey agenda

Much of the interview was spent talking about the economy and involved Harris outlining her agenda. Her “opportunity economy” involves a housing plan to help first-time homebuyers, a child tax plan that involves expanding credits to families, and a plan to boost small businesseswith tax deductions for entrepreneurs, among other proposals.

“If you are hardworking, if you have the dreams and the ambitions and the aspirations I believe you do, you’re in my plan,” she said.

When it comes to how to pay for some programs, Harris reiterated that she would not raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000—maintaining a pillar of President Joe Biden’s tax plan—but that corporations should pay their “fair share” in taxes.

Much of Harris’s economic agenda would need congressional approval, particularly when it comes to tax policy. That would make it an uphill battle, should Congress see a Republican majority; but also if either or both chambers are closely split between parties.

Ruhle questioned the vice president on polling that shows likely voters think Trump is better on the economy. Harris recently closed the gap with Trump on the economy in one survey — an Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that found Harris and Trump with equal support on the issue.

“Donald Trump left us with the worst economy since the Great Depression,” Harris said, citing data that about 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the Trump years.

Walz pick was gut decision

Toward the end of the interview, Ruhle asked Harris when was the last time she made a “gut decision,” given that decisions made by presidents take “extraordinary instinct and guts.”

“When’s the last time you had to make a gut decision? This here is very prescribed. It’s very controlled,” Ruhle asked, referring to the interview setup.

“The biggest gut decision I made most recently was to choose my running mate,” Harris responded, referring to her decision to pick Walz to run as her vice president. “There were lots of good, incredible candidates, and ultimately that came down to a gut decision.”

Harris picked Walz in August, just more than a month after she announced her presidential bid. The governor emerged as a dark horse contender for the slot just before Harris made her choice, being selected over other more high-profile names Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly (D) ,who were largely viewed for weeks as the favorites for the position.

Harris knocks Trump on tariffs

Harris bashed Trump for his suggestion to place tariffs on foreign companies, which he has laid out repeatedly on the campaign trail.

“Part of it is, you don’t just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board, and that’s part of the problem with Donald Trump,” Harris said when Ruhle asked about the former president’s plans to expand tariffs.

“He’s just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues,” Harris added. “One must be serious and have a real plan that’s not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally.”

Trump gave an economic-focused speech this week in Pennsylvania, during which he spoke about his plan to use tariffs, continuing to expand on his claims that he wants to expand the use of tariffs if he’s elected.

He also threatened Illinois-based John Deerewith massive tariffs on its products if it outsources some of its manufacturing to Mexico, as it has previously announced.

Harris defends opposition to U.S. Steel sale

Harris defended her opposition to Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel acquiring U.S. Steel, after Ruhle mentioned the potential consequences of blocking it.

U.S. Steel warned earlier this month that it may cut staff and move its headquarters from Pittsburgh, if the company’s planned sale falls apart. Nippon Steel announced it would acquire U.S. Steel in December—prompting outcry from lawmakers, including Biden and Trump, who argued the deal could undermine national security and industrial capacity.

“It’s most important that we maintain America’s ability to have American manufacturing [of] steel by American workers for a number of reasons,” Harris said, defending the opposition.

“There is not a new industry that I can imagine that is not going to require steel,” she added, noting, “And having American workers in an American company manufacturing that steel for those industries is going to be critically important.”

Ruhle interview is Harris’s deepest on policy

Harris’s interview with Ruhle went deeper into her proposed economic policies than any of the other media appearances and interviews she’s done to date as the Democratic nominee.

Ruhle questioned Harris, for example, on how she planned to pay for such proposals and how the federal government would cut through red tape to reach municipalities on matters such as the shortage of housing.

The vice president outlined incentives the federal government can create for communities to build more homes and provide transit. Harris maintains that such proposals could be paid for with an increase in corporate taxes but has not gotten into details about how such hikes could get through Congress.

“I know that we have to reduce the red tape and speed up what we need to do around building, and that is going to require working from the federal level with state and local governments,” she said.

Research contact: @thehill