Basically pleads guilty...

Giuliani won’t contest Georgia election workers’ claims that he falsely accused them of manipulating ballots

In a heavily couched statement, he also conceded that his statements meet the “factual elements of liability” for Moss and Freeman’s claims that his attacks amounted to “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

By KYLE CHENEY

Rudy Giuliani made significant concessions late Tuesday in a long-running defamation lawsuit by two Georgia election workers, dropping efforts to challenge their claim that he falsely accused the pair of manipulating ballots in the 2020 election.

In a two-page statement filed in federal court just before midnight Tuesday, Giuliani said he “does not contest” that his statements, which fueled a torrent of public attacks on the workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — were “false” and “carry meaning that is defamatory.”

In the heavily couched statement, Giuliani also conceded that his statements meet the “factual elements of liability” for Moss and Freeman’s claims that his attacks amounted to “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

But Giuliani is not abandoning his effort to fight the lawsuit altogether. An aide, Ted Goodman, said his concessions and acknowledgments were an effort to bypass the fact-gathering stage and move on to legal arguments about whether he can be held liable for the damages Moss and Freeman are seeking.

“Mayor Rudy Giuliani did not acknowledge that the statements were false but did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss,” Goodman said. “This is a legal issue, not a factual issue. Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”

Still, it’s a significant acknowledgment from the former president’s attorney, who spent months pointing to security footage of Moss and Freeman as proof that thousands of ballots had been mishandled or sabotaged in Georgia. Those claims were widely debunked by Georgia and federal investigators but were nevertheless echoed by former President Donald Trump and others in his orbit. Moss and Freeman testified to the Jan. 6 select committee that both had faced significant threats and suffered damages to their livelihoods as a result of Trump and Giuliani’s claims.

“Giuliani’s stipulation concedes what we have always known to be true—Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss honorably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election 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,” said Michael J. Gottlieb, partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. “While certain issues, including damages, remain to be decided by the court, our clients are pleased with this major milestone in their fight for justice, and look forward to presenting what remains of this case at trial.”

Giuliani’s stipulation appears intended to head off more legal pain in the long-running lawsuit, which has resulted in depositions of several high-level figures in Trump’s orbit, the disclosure of text messages, emails and deposition transcripts, and threatened significant financial penalties.

Most recently, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who is presiding over the lawsuit, threatened severe sanctions on Giuliani over claims that he failed to preserve significant caches of evidence related to the matter. Giuliani’s stipulation to the facts of the lawsuit came in response to an order from Howell demanding an explanation for his failure to produce certain batches of records and asking why she shouldn’t simply rule in Moss and Freeman’s favor.

Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Sibley, emphasized in an accompanying filing that Giuliani was not in fact “admitting” to Moss and Freeman’s allegations against him but making a decision to stop contesting them, which he says should end the women’s effort to seek further factual evidence — emails, text messages and other communications — from Giuliani.

Though the statement amounts to an admission of the facts, Sibley said Giuliani still contends that he has legal defenses to the claims and is asking Howell to rule purely on those legal questions now that the facts have largely been established.

In Tuesday’s signed statement, Giuliani said he still maintains his legal argument that his comments about Moss and Freeman were “constitutionally protected statements or opinions.” But by admitting to the facts, he says further efforts by Moss and Freeman to obtain documents and other factual evidence are no longer necessary.

The statement comes as special counsel Jack Smith appears poised to charge Trump and potentially others for their efforts to subvert the 2020 election, an effort that has included a penetrating look at efforts by Trump and his allies — including Giuliani — to mount false claims of election fraud.

Giuliani has sat for at least one proffer session with Smith’s investigators, and Smith has also scrutinized other figures working with Giuliani on the election effort, including former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik.

Kerik, who has also come under pressure from Howell to provide more documents to Moss and Freeman in the lawsuit, revealed this week that he had obtained the Trump campaign’s permission to produce documents he once considered protected by attorney-client privilege.

In Tuesday night’s filing, Giuliani also sharply contested that he personally mishandled or destroyed any of the evidence Moss and Freeman were seeking. He produced a statement from another attorney, Robert Costello, that primarily pinned blame on the Justice Department’s seizure of his devices in 2021, which he said were returned with corrupted files or, in some cases, wiped altogether.