You have commented 358 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Government Corruption
Rudy Giuliani found in contempt of court — again — for defaming Georgia election workers
2025-01-13
[NYPost] For the second time this week, a judge has found Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court in a case involving two Georgia election workers he baselessly claimed committed election fraud in 2020.

Washington, DC, federal Judge Beryl Howell
…appointed by Barack Obama, who shocked the world by joking with President Trump at Jimmy Carter’s funeral…
sided with lawyers for Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman,
…the ladies were observed on surveillance video in Fulton County’s State Farm Arena, where they were engaged as vote tabulators for the 2020 election. After the supervisor announced that the count was shut down for the night, Ms Freeman and her daughter, and Ms Moss and another worker pulled extra boxes of ballots from under the table where they’d been secreted, then repeatedly scanned the stacks of ballots into an election computer. That sounds like a basis for claiming election fraud to me…
finding that Giuliani violated the judge’s "unambiguous" prior ruling barring the former New York City Mayor from continuing to defame the two women, according to reporting by The Hill.
The ruling is indeed unambiguous. However, telling the truth cannot be defamation.
On Monday, a Manhattan federal judge similarly held Giuliani in contempt of court, on the grounds that he was trying to "run out the clock" to avoid paying Freeman and Moss a $148 million defamation verdict they won in 2023.
Did he appeal the verdict? What’s the status of that?
Howell chided Giuliani — President-elect Donald Trump
...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US...
’s one-time personal lawyer who was once regarded as "America’s Mayor" — for using his fame to tarnish the duo with "fabricated lies."

"You’re the most famous person in this courtroom right now, you’ve got a bigger audience, you’ve got a bigger public following than anyone in this courtroom," the judge said.

"I really hoped we were done," the judge said.
No doubt.
Earlier, Michael Gottlieb, a lawyer for Moss and Freeman, told Howell they didn’t want to be back in court but said his clients just want "Mr. Giuliani to stop defaming them," according to a report by NBC News.

He requested that Giuliani be fined $20,000 for every time he continued to defame the women even after Howell ordered an agreement promising he wouldn’t do so anymore.

Gottlieb specifically requested that the fines come from money that has been deemed off-limits — including an IRA account.

Giuliani’s lawyer, Eden Quainton, claimed a $20,000 fine per violation would be "excessive."

At one point, Giuliani took the witness stand explaining that he had roughly $163,000 in a 401k account, $100,000 in one IRA account and $1.1 million in another — all of which he claimed should be exempt.

"I claim they’re exempt, and you’re trying to take them from me," Giuliani testified.

Giuliani allegedly violated the agreement in November on a streaming show repeating claims that the two women committed election fraud against Trump during the 2020 presidential election, but Quainton argued his client had kept his promise for months prior to the slip-up.
An easy way to keep the controversy in the public eye.
Howell shot down the argument.

"Because he was good for a few months, we ought to excuse any bad behavior after that?" she asked.
There’s a solid argument that it’s the judge, defence team, and defendants who are the miscreants.
Quainton also claimed that Giuliani couldn’t have said the comments on his show with malice — a legal standard used in defamation cases — because he actually believes to be true what he’s saying about the women.

Howell was alarmed by the argument suggesting Giuliani would never cease making the claims against the women.

"He’s never going to stop because he thinks he’s right?" Howell said. "That’s chilling."

Ted Goodman, Giuliani’s political advisor, claimed Giuliani wasn’t able to sufficiently defend himself in the original defamation suit.

"This contempt ruling is designed to prevent Mayor Giuliani from exercising his constitutional rights," Goodman said.

Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Liman on Monday held Giuliani in contempt for twice blowing off deadlines and failing to turn over critical information ahead of a Jan. 16 trial in the case about whether his Florida home and his cherished Yankees World Series rings should be relinquished to Ross and Freeman to help pay down his debt to them.

"The defendant willfully violated a clear and unambiguous order of the court," Liman said, also blasting Giuliani’s testimony Monday as "self-serving."

The surveillance video:


Related:
Rudy Giuliani 01/10/2025 Paradise Lost - The burning of L.A. is not just a natural disaster. It's a man-made catastrophe.
Rudy Giuliani 12/03/2024 Behold the Hundreds of Crimes for Which Hunter Biden Just Got Pardoned
Rudy Giuliani 11/17/2024 We Can All Thank Don, Jr.

Related:
Beryl Howell 12/15/2024 Nearly 4 Years Later, No Letup in Jan. 6 Prosecutions, Possible Pardons or Not
Beryl Howell 08/19/2023 Jack Smith's "Flight Risk" Deception
Beryl Howell 06/23/2023 Were They Spying on Trump All Along?

Related:
Shaye Moss 01/10/2023 Notorious election worker in Georgia awarded Presidential Citizen's Medal at White House

Related:
Fulton County: 2024-12-29 Fani To Be Slapped With Subpoenas After Court Rules Lawmakers Can Demand Answers
Fulton County: 2024-12-28 Fani Willis Gets Some More Bad News
Fulton County: 2024-12-20 Georgia Court Removes Fani Willis from Trump Case over Relationship with Special Prosecutor
Related:
State Farm Arena: 2024-05-08 Georgia reprimands Fulton County for scanning ballots twice in 2020 recount
State Farm Arena: 2023-11-10 Trouble in Fulton County? High-Powered Defense Attorneys Move to Withdraw Amid Questions About 2020 Ballots
State Farm Arena: 2023-09-06 Georgia Politicians' Blatant Cover-Up of Corruption in State Farm Arena in 2020 Election Exposed
Posted by:trailing wife

#6  He seems to be his own worst enemy, when it comes to dealing with legal process. Probably getting to old for this game. You should see the vulture peanut gallery on X.
Posted by: KBK   2025-01-13 18:03  

#5  This will deter anyone from pointing out possible election fraud.

Well, yeah. That's kinda to point, isn't it? I mean, I believe that is their intention.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2025-01-13 12:04  

#4  We have some really contemptible courts right now.
Posted by: Super Hose   2025-01-13 07:58  

#3  
Will Trump pardon Rudy, having seen and experienced 1st hand the fraud that many Fulton Co. GA Election workers pulled off, despite the mountain of evidence showing it happened?

Will the MSM blow a fuse for Trump doing the right thing, unlike they didn't do with the babbling Biden pardons?
Posted by: NN2N1   2025-01-13 06:26  

#2  How could he have done $148 Million worth of defamation on these two?
Posted by: Frank G   2025-01-13 05:50  

#1  In Western democracies the burden of proof is on the government.

The government must prove that elections were free and fair to legitimize its powers.

One necessary element for this is that vote counts be only conducted in public, the government must prove that measures were taken that would deny access to uncounted ballots when not under public scrutiny.

Here, we not only know that officials had theoretical access to ballots but we actually have evidence of ballots being "counted" in the absence of observers.

The 2016 Austrian presidential elections were annulled because it was established that government officials theoretically had unsupervised access to a number uncounted ballots in excess of the margin of victory.

Here, at issue is not a remedy of the government's proven wrongdoing but suppression of information on the government's wrongdoing.

Does the government derive its power from the consent of the governed or from the consent of the likes of Mrs. Ross and Mrs Freeman.

This creates a chilling effect for speech that touches a vital aspect of any form of Western democracy.

This will deter anyone from pointing out possible election fraud.

Could the Trump admin's justice department investigate Mrs. Moss & Mrs Freeman for civil rights violations?

Could sympathetic legislators in Congress and state legislatures enter this video and an informal reprimand into the official record?

Could President Trump issue a proclamation entering the video and an informal reprimand into the public federal record.

Maybe they should.

It would draw the public's attention to the issue and it would protect the information from suppression by the courts.

The principle of Checks & Balances should limit courts' powers as well.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660   2025-01-13 02:33  

00:00