Giuliani concedes statements were defamatory in Georgia election workers' case

[July 27, 2023]  By Jacqueline Thomsen

(Reuters) - Rudy Giuliani, onetime attorney for former U.S. President Donald Trump, admitted in a court filing late Tuesday that he made defamatory statements about a pair of Georgia election workers.

Giuliani told a federal court in Washington that he does not dispute that comments he made about Wandrea "Shaye" Moss and Ruby Freeman "carry meaning that is defamatory per se."

Moss and Freeman said in a December 2021 lawsuit that Giuliani injured their reputations when he accused them of conspiring to produce and process secret batches of illegal ballots. No evidence supports such claims, which have been repeatedly debunked by Georgia election officials.

Giuliani said in the filing that he was making the concession "solely for purposes of this litigation" and "without admitting to the truth of the allegations."

Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement that Giuliani wanted "to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss."

Michael Gottlieb, a lawyer for Moss and Freeman, said in a statement that Giuliani's filing concedes that Freeman and Moss did their jobs as election workers "in full compliance with the law; and the allegations of election fraud he and former President Trump made against them have been false since day one."

Freeman and Moss are seeking sanctions against Giuliani, alleging he failed to preserve important evidence. Giuliani's attorney Bob Costello denied those claims in court papers on Tuesday, saying that issues raised by the plaintiffs about the quality of the evidence stemmed from the handling of electronic devices seized by federal authorities in a separate probe, in which no charges were brought.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivers remarks on the September 11 attacks during a news conference in New York, U.S., September 9, 2022. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

Tuesday's court document said Giuliani wants "to avoid unnecessary expenses in litigating what he believes to be unnecessary disputes."

Giuliani, New York City's former mayor and once the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, has faced other legal challenges over baseless claims he made about widespread fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which Trump lost.

A New York state court suspended Giuliani's law license, and a District of Columbia ethics hearing committee earlier this month recommended that his license there be revoked.

He is also facing defamation lawsuits from voting companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic about fraud claims he made about the 2020 election. Giuliani has characterized the Smartmatic allegations as baseless, and has also denied Dominion's claims.

(Reporting by Jacqueline Thomsen in Washington; Editing by David Bario and Jonathan Oatis)
 

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