Giuliani Just Made His Legal Troubles Even Worse in Georgia Defamation Trial
Rudy Giuliani just can’t seem to stay out of trouble.
The former Trump attorney got grilled by a federal judge on Tuesday, who argued that Giuliani’s post-court tirade, during which he espoused more of the 2020 election lies that he’s on the stand for to begin with, could warrant more defamation charges.
America’s mayor is currently on trial to determine how many millions he owes a pair of Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Giuliani was already found liable in August for defaming them after he accused the duo of manipulating ballots—claims that transformed into months of harassment, death threats, and protesters at their doorsteps.
Outside the courthouse on Monday, the very first day after his trial, Giuliani told a gaggle of reporters that he still stands by those claims.
“Of course I don’t regret it, I told the truth,” Giuliani said. “They were engaged in changing votes.”
“When I testify, the whole story will be definitively clear that what I said was true, and that, whatever happened to them—which is unfortunate about other people overreacting—everything I said about them is true,” he added.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell was incensed by the accusations, which flew in the face of part of Giuliani’s defense, which argued that Freeman and Moss were “good people” who did not deserve what happened to them. Even Giuliani’s attorney, Joe Sibley, had a hard time defending his client’s behavior, admitting that the two statements were not “reconcilable” before blaming Giuliani’s inflammatory comments on the 79-year-old’s age.
“Was Mr. Giuliani just playing for the cameras?” Howell asked Sibley on Tuesday, noting that his recent comments “could support another defamation claim.”
It may be a supernova blast in the limelight for America’s disgraced mayor, whose star is quickly dying amid a flurry of legal charges that have all but bankrupted him. After this expensive trial, Giuliani will be one of 19 co-defendants in the Fulton County election interference case in which he stands accused of orchestrating a “criminal enterprise” in Georgia that pressured state officials to reverse Trump’s election loss.
But Giuliani may be undone even before he’s handed a sentence. In September, the criminal defendant was sued by his former legal representation for failing to pay his bill, allegedly only dishing out $214,000 of nearly $1.6 million in legal expenses, after he claimed he was stiffed by his favorite client, Trump, to the tune of millions of dollars.
It should serve as a lesson to even the closest of Trump’s allies: There’s no thanks for helping the real estate mogul. Despite the bad blood, Giuliani apparently had no other option than to beg Trump for help settling his seven-figure legal fees, to which the stingy developer refused but offered to throw a couple of fundraisers for him instead.
