Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has admitted in a court filing that he made false claims about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia election workers who were falsely accused of committing election fraud by former President Donald Trump and his allies.
As Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, Giuliani made the admission in a new court filing in an attempt to ward off further discovery in the case.
“Rudy’s stipulation appears intended to ward off further legal pain in this long-running defamation lawsuit,” Cheney writes. “Judge Howell has already sanctioned him and threatened further penalties for failing to produce docs… He doesn’t concede to any damages and still says he has legal defenses to the claims in the lawsuit — but as a factual matter, he admits he said what he said, that it was false and that it could constitute defamation/intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
Giuliani has been facing the prospect of severe sanctions after attorneys representing Freeman and Moss argued that he failed to turn over electronic communications he made despite having had ample time to produce them.
“Defendant Giuliani has had eighteen months since Plaintiffs first filed this suit to take reasonable steps to preserve his electronic evidence, including more than six months since Plaintiffs first raised the question of preservation,” the attorneys argued earlier this month. “Defendant Giuliani has had nearly three months since Plaintiffs filed the motion to compel. Defendant Giuliani’s failure to preserve his electronic records in the face of repeated reminders, and a personal awareness of his obligations, can and should be interpreted by this Court as a deliberate effort to deprive Plaintiffs of material evidence in this litigation.”