Former election staff Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss advised a decide in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that Rudy Giuliani had as soon as once more made defamatory feedback about them and argued that he must be held in civil contempt.
Giuliani “overtly” violated an injunction positioned on him in December 2023 after a federal court docket discovered him accountable for defaming Moss and Freeman throughout the 2020 election, in keeping with the movement for civil contempt filed by their attorneys. He was ordered to pay the ladies $148 million and agreed to not make any additional false statements about them.
Moss and Freeman’s attorneys need the court docket to enter an order that places Giuliani on discover that he will likely be fined for each violation sooner or later, and so they have requested for a listening to to find out how a lot that tremendous must be. Historically, civil contempt orders place a sanction on a person, declaring that they had been disobedient, and are accompanied by penalties like fines, jail time, or each.
In 2020, Giuliani repeatedly and falsely accused Freeman and Moss of participating in fraud once they had been ballot staff at State Farm Enviornment in Georgia. He made such feedback on social media, tv and podcasts, and even peddled them on to former President Donald Trump, who used these claims to lash out on the ladies publicly.
Giuliani filed for chapter after he was ordered to pay the ladies $148 million. Freeman and Moss observe in Wednesday’s movement to carry Giuliani in civil contempt that in Could of this 12 months, as chapter proceedings had been unfolding, they believed Giuliani would possibly lastly cease defaming them.
However that solely lasted six months, they are saying.
The previous New York Metropolis mayor “unambiguously” referred to Moss and Freeman throughout two latest broadcasts of his podcast and renewed claims that the ladies had been fraudsters, in keeping with the movement.
Moss and Freeman’s attorneys cited a Nov. 12 livestream of Giuliani’s podcast, “America’s Mayor Reside,” and supplied the next written transcript of his remarks:
Now in the event you needed me to make out a examine to pay my payments, I can’t do it due to decide um [off screen voice: Liman] Decide Liman and and the Biden uh the Biden people who find themselves behind the case of the 2 ladies…You didn’t have $145 million in damages. Actually there’s, there’s video of you doing what I mentioned. We will play it for you if you’d like. You framed me. You had a decide whose a bloodthirsty uh uh um January 6 sentencer, the largest January 6 sentencer who advised the opposite judges they weren’t giving robust sufficient sentences. She discovered a technique to manipulate it so I by no means bought a trial on legal responsibility, I by no means bought a trial on damages. You by no means proved damages and you bought $145 million, so I’m interesting it. You’d assume that they wouldn’t be allowed to take all my property till the factor was affirmed on attraction and I bought an opportunity to indicate them that they by no means let me present the tapes that present them quadruple counting the the the ballots.
Giuliani then repeated a defamatory declare he has been making since 2021 that has been debunked by surveillance video and witness testimony, saying that Moss and Freeman handed a USB drive to one another containing votes for Joe Biden that they meant to make use of to change tabulations.
“They’re passing these little uh little onerous drives that we keep had been used to repair the machines proper and so they say it was sweet. Nicely you take a look at it appears to be like like a tough drive to me and so they advised me it was a tough drive and there’s no proof that it was sweet,” Giuliani mentioned, in keeping with a transcript within the movement.
There was by no means a tough drive handed between the ladies. It was a ginger mint.
Giuliani additionally acknowledged that his remarks would possible trigger him to be sued once more.
“I’m sorry they’re going to sue me once more for saying it however what am I going to do however inform the reality,” Giuliani mentioned, per the transcript.
On Nov. 14, throughout one other episode of “America’s Mayor Reside,” Moss and Freeman’s attorneys observe, Giuliani repeated claims that he had video proof of the ladies quadrupling vote counts. A footnote in Wednesday’s movement notes that Giuliani has reposted a surveillance video from State Farm Enviornment twice on X this month, suggesting it was proof of fraud.
The surveillance video from the sector exhibits election staff resuming vote counts after they had been advised to cease. Video exhibits Moss and Freeman focusing their consideration on containers of ballots they faraway from beneath tables. Proponents of the “Cease the Steal” motion claimed they had been suitcases full of ballots for Joe Biden. Three totally different regulation enforcement businesses reviewed all the surveillance footage from State Farm Enviornment in Fulton County.
A last report issued on Mar. 7, 2023, by the Georgia secretary of state declared no fraud was detected.
When a reporter requested him this month if he regretted defaming the ladies, the attorneys write within the movement, Giuliani was defiant.
“No I didn’t. Initially, I didn’t defame them. I didn’t defame them,” Giuliani advised New York Each day Information reporter Molly-Crane Newman.
The ladies’s movement argues that Giuliani must be held in civil contempt and be pressured to adjust to court docket orders — which he beforehand agreed to — that barred him from making defamatory statements.
“Certainly, these newest statements merely regurgitate the identical precise lies that Giuliani has been spreading for years,” the movement states.
Legal professionals for Giuliani didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Wednesday.
Giuliani is scheduled to go on trial in New York on Jan. 16 so enforcement of the $148 million in damages might be hashed out, however he has requested for a delay so he can attend Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 and attend “pre-inauguration” occasions. On Wednesday, Moss and Freeman’s attorneys additionally requested the decide overseeing the chapter enforcement trial in New York to shorten the present deadline Giuliani faces to provide gadgets in discovery from 30 days to 2 weeks.
We Want Your Assist
Assist JHB
Already contributed? Log in to cover these messages.
“Making ready these points for trial by January 16, 2025—together with by having ample paperwork in time to handle them at Defendant’s deposition—would require Defendant’s immediate compliance with discovery requests. Sadly, Mr. Giuliani has already demonstrated his unwillingness to adjust to discovery deadlines,” a lawyer for the ladies wrote.
There’s merely “no cause to imagine” that Giuliani would deal with the trial in New York any in another way than different proceedings, so shifting the deadlines ahead would make faster work of the “inevitable points with Defendant’s productions (or lack thereof) as they come up,” the lawyer argued.
In a press release to JHB on Wednesday, Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman — whose information have additionally been subpoenaed within the chapter case — known as the movement for civil contempt a “dishonest and duplicitous assault” meant to deprive Giuliani of his proper to free speech.
On Wednesday afternoon, Cammarata responded to Moss and Freeman’s demand that Giuliani’s briefing schedule be moved up and requested that their demand be denied. He additionally accused the ladies of constructing the “improper choice” of submitting their case in opposition to Giuliani in New York as a substitute of Florida, the place Giuliani additionally holds a residence.
Moss and Freeman’s lawyer wouldn’t be happy, the legal professional wrote, “till Defendant at 80 years of age is destitute with no place to dwell.”