Holding Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court, Judge Beryl Howell gave former New York Mayor and disgraced lawyer a dressing down: his "outrageous and shameful" refusal to stop defaming two election workers will lead to further consequences, she said: "This takes real chutzpah, Mr Giuliani."
Following the hearing, Giuliani told reporters he believes Howell is "not American" because she had her "opinion written before" the hearing. He then compared her to Soviets and Nazis.
In addition to finding Giuliani in contempt, Howell ordered that within 10 days – Trump's Inauguration Day – he must swear in a statement sent to the court that he's reviewed and acknowledges several records showing that there was no fraud in the 2020 election. If he doesn't do that, he'll be fined $200 a day.
He's going to be fined $200 a day for refusing to co-operate with the court in a $148m defamation verdict against him. If that sounds like a joke, the prospect of incarceration beckons with further contempt rulings.
In late 2023, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, told a jury of the violent threats they received after Giuliani's lies about the 2020 election and how they ruined their livelihoods.
After that trial, Moss and Freeman complained to Howell that on recent broadcasts of Giuliani's show, he said people were quadruple-counting ballots and passing hard drives to rig vote-counting machines. Those insinuations were false, and they were among the types of comments Giuliani had agreed not to repeat anymore in a settlement that Howell approved months ago.
Last week, Manhattan Judge Lewis Liman held Giuliani in contempt for failing to turn over information to Moss and Freeman's lawyers.
Legal experts say there's no prospect of president-elect Donald Trump solving Giuliani's problems for him, short of writing a check to his victims. But if something odd were the happen, it wouldn't be the first time legal experts are left sputtering in the age of Trump; his inauguration in 10 days.
