Former NYC mayor and Trump lawyer admitted last night that he made defamatory statements about two Georgia election workers—Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss—he falsely accused of manipulating ballots in the 2020 US presidential election.
From CNN:
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. Notably, he also refuses to concede that his statements caused damages to Moss or Freeman.
The new filing doesn't immediately resolve the case against Giuliani, which had taken a thorny turn for the former prosecutor and New York City mayor after a judge cautioned him earlier this month that he could lose the lawsuit or face severe sanctions for not gathering his own records in a thorough way and turning them over to Moss and Freeman's team as they move through the case […]
In his court filing, Giuliani specifically said he "does not contest" that assertions he made about the women – whom he accused of being part of a vote-manipulation scheme in Georgia – "were false."
"Defendant Giuliani concedes solely for the purposes of this litigation … that Defendant Giuliani made the statements of and concerning plaintiffs," his filing said. "He does not dispute for the purposes of this litigation, that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory per se."
