Court Ask Rudy Giuliani Why He Won’t Admit Defeat After He Admitted He Defamed Plaintiffs In An Election-Related Lawsuit

Defamation

from the you-look-like-an-idiot,-Rudy dept

As Trump’s favored performing monkey during his elected years, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani managed to set a lot of precedent. Sure, none of this precedent was set in court, but it’s been all of NEVER since Americans have been blessed by the omnipresence of a TOP LAW GUY who has (1) leaked dark fluid out of his scalp during a public appearance, (2) engaged in quasi-sexual pre-interview rituals, and (3) held a press conference in front of an unsuspecting lawn care company.

Truly the greatest of legacies. Giuliani may have single-handedly healed the nation after 9/11 (or so I’m told by his PR team), but he’s spent the intervening years turning himself into a hand puppet for a deposed autocrat, trading what’s left of his reputation for small down payments on lib ownership.

Well, you’ve got to spend reputation to earn reputation, said no one ever. That’s Rudy Giuliani in his current incarnation: a huckster with a tenuous grip on a license to practice law. Disbarment seems inevitable, but Giuliani persists, even in the face of his own sworn facts.

Late last month, Giuliani submitted a filing [PDF] in which he admitted he had defamed the plaintiffs suing him in federal court.

Rudy Giuliani concedes he made defamatory statements about Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in an effort to resolve their lawsuit against him and to satisfy a judge who has considered sanctioning him.

The late-night Tuesday filing from Giuliani says he doesn’t contest Moss and Freeman’s accusations that he smeared them after the 2020 election. Yet the filing says he still wants to be able to argue that his statements about voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election were protected speech.

Very rarely do you see a defendant in a defamation suit submit a filing stating (on the record) that, yeah, the plaintiffs are right: I did defame them.

That admission might have been the first step on the road to redemption for most people. But Rudy Giuliani isn’t most people. (And thank fuck for that.) Giuliani admitted he did the thing he’s being sued for, but argued that none of that mattered because his admitted defamation had no negative effect on the plaintiffs, Georgia election workers smeared by Rudy’s false statements.

This stipulation does not affect Giuliani’s ability to seek setoff, offset or settlement credit, or his argument that his statements are constitutionally protected statements or opinions or any applicable statute of limitations, or that Giuliani’s statements, in fact, caused Plaintiffs any damages…

Cue DRAMATIC ACTOR Calculon:

Here’s the thing: statements can be per se defamatory (which Giuliani admits) or they can be protected statements of opinion. They cannot, however, be both. Defamation isn’t covered by the First Amendment. That much has always been clear.

But that’s exactly what Giuliani is arguing, on top of his assertions that his defamatory statements resulted in zero damages. And it’s going to force us to revise an old adage. “The man who defends himself in court has a fool for a lawyer” must be amended to “The man who defends Rudy Giuliani in court has a fool for a lawyer.”

And Giuliani is not representing himself here. He’s represented by Camera and Sibley, LLP out of Texas — a firm apparently willing to rep self-destructive arguments like this one. Good luck with that.

This odd, internally inconsistent set of assertions has forced the court to ask WTAF.

A federal judge on Friday demanded an explanation from Rudy Giuliani as to why he conceded in court that he made false and defamatory statements about two Georgia election workers after the 2020 election but hasn’t forfeited their lawsuit against him.

No order has been issued. But a ton of text has been dropped on the docket reflecting the judge’s frustration with a defendant who openly conceded a loss, but refuses to recognize the reality of the situation.

And this is what’s on the docket, edited for clarity, internal citations, and my personal refusal to subject readers to a massive wall of text.

MINUTE ORDER (paperless) DIRECTING defendant Giuliani to CLARIFY his [84-2] “Nolo Contendre [sic] Stipulation” (“Giuliani Stipulation”), submitted in response to plaintiffs’ Motion for Discovery Sanctions Against Defendant Rudolph Giuliani For Failure to Preserve Electronic Evidence (“Pls.’ Motion”), which unsworn stipulation signed by defendant Giuliani contests no part of plaintiffs’ motion but rather purports to set out concessions sufficient to avoid further discovery demands and the risk of concomitant sanctions for failure to comply with discovery obligations, under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 through 37, but simultaneously contains multiple caveats and limitations undercutting that purpose.

For example, the Giuliani Stipulation concedes: that defendant Giuliani “made the statements of and concerning Plaintiffs, which include all of the statements detailed in Plaintiffs[‘] [sic] Amended Complaint “that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory per se,” that defendant Giuliani “published those statements to third parties,” “that, to the extent the statements were statement of fact and otherwise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false[,]” and that defendant Giuliani “does not contest… the factual elements of liability …

Yet, these concessions appear to be significantly limited with caveats that the Giuliani Stipulation. […] Given the seemingly incongruous and certainly puzzling caveats contained in the Giuliani Stipulation, plaintiffs’ counsel recounts efforts to obtain clarification from defendant Giuliani’s counsel […], but no such clarification has been submitted directly to the Court by defendant Giuliani or otherwise acknowledged by defendant Giuliani.

Accordingly, for the above reasons, defendant Giuliani is DIRECTED, by August 8, 2023 at 4:00 PM, to submit to the Court either: (a) a superseding stipulation in which he (i) concedes, for purposes of this litigation, all factual allegations in plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint as to his liability for plaintiffs’ defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy claims, and his liability as to plaintiffs’ claim for punitive damages […] or (b) an explanation for declining to submit the superseding stipulation described in paragraph (a), above, that also provides clarification as to what precisely his original stipulation conceded regarding the plaintiffs’ factual allegations and legal claims.

Giuliani is now being forced to explain how he can reconcile his admission of loss while his refusal to treat this as a loss or why he feels his statements can both be per se defamation AND protected expression. He’s also being asked to convince the court to not just declare the plaintiffs the victor in this court battle, using little else than Giuliani’s own admissions, which are damning but also couched in a bunch of stipulation the court is under no obligation to entertain.

This looks like rock bottom for Giuliani. But, as we’ve all had the misfortune to observe, those in Trump’s immediate orbit are always willing to see if they can’t find a new high in low points. And while this is often entertaining, it’s also our tax dollars being blown on entertaining litigation clown cars piloted by people who should have long exited the national conversation.

Filed Under: defamation, rudy giuliani, stipulations