Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani admitted in a late-night Tuesday court filing that he defamed Georgia election workers, mother and daughter Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
In the filing in U.S. District Court in DC, “Defendant Giuliani concedes solely for purposes of this litigation before this Court and on Appeal: that Defendant Giuliani made statements of and concerning Plaintiffs…[and] to the extent the statements were statements of fact and otherwise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false.”
In June 2022, Moss testified during a televised hearing of the House Select January 6 Committee about how a mob of Trump supporters had targeted her and her mother, both online and in person, after consuming debunked conspiracy theories about their actions on Election Day 2020, to the point where Moss said she and Freeman felt safe “nowhere.”
Giuliani, who was advising Trump on efforts to overturn the 2020 election, falsely claimed that Moss and Freeman could bee seen on video passing USB drives “like vials of heroin or cocaine” while counting ballots in Fulton County, Georgia.
Moss testified to Congress that what her mother was actually passing to her was “a ginger mint.”
Ahead of the broadcast Freeman testified to the Committee that because of Giuliani’s false scapegoating, “I have lost my name and I have lost my reputation” as well as “my sense of security.”
The new filing by Giuliani—who still refuses to concede that his statements caused damages to Moss or Freeman—does not immediately resolve the case against the former New York City mayor. Federal Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court has warned Giuliani that he could still face severe sanctions for not gathering his own records in a thorough way and turning them over to Moss and Freeman’s legal team as their lawsuit against him proceeds.
Giuliani has testified before a Fulton County grand jury as District Attorney Fani Willis investigates election interference by Trump and his associates in the states of Georgia. She has suggested that any criminal charges in that case could come next month.
Last month, Giuliani was interviewed by prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating potential federal criminal wrongdoing surrounding the 2020 election and the related January 6, 2021 deadly insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
The grand jury in that case was scheduled to meet Tuesday, but apparently did not, following news that Trump received a target letter from the special counsel. The letter reportedly includes a number of potential criminal charges against the former President.
That federal grand jury last met this past Thursday without handing up any possible indictments.
Meanwhile, Giuliani is facing ethics charges by the DC Board of Professional Responsibility over alleged breach of ethics rules on behalf of the 2020 Trump campaign in Pennsylvania, after having his New York law licensed suspended in June 2021 for making “demonstrably false and misleading” statements about voter fraud.
PHOTO: Shaye Moss, House January 6 Committee Testimony (Ruby Freeman in red behind Moss)
