The defamation trial brought by two Georgia election workers against drunken 9/11 enthusiast Rudy Giuliani is not going well for him. And it would be cruel to bathe ourselves in the old hair-dye goblin’s misfortune, to kick a man when he’s down. Really cruel. Someone please draw us a bath and bring us a washcloth and a pair of soccer cleats.
To refresh your memories, Giuliani was sued by two Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, after he baselessly accused them of committing voting fraud during the 2020 election. Rudy claimed that the two women could be seen on video on Election Night pulling fraudulent votes out of a mysterious suitcase and feeding them into a voting machine. This was about as accurate a claim as the one about Chinese hackers using thermostats to somehow hack into nearby machines or Italian satellites changing vote totals from orbit. Mamma Mia!
PREVIOUSLY!
Back in July, Giuliani admitted in two stipulations that he had made false statements about Freeman and Moss. But he claimed that those statements were constitutionally protected. He also claimed he was only admitting to the statements to skip over the long discovery process so he could hurry to the trial and clear his name.
Unfortunately for Giuliani, this genius legal strategy backfired when Judge Beryl Howell concluded that thanks to his admission, the upcoming trial could skip over the question of whether the statements were defamatory and proceed right to the penalty phase, where a jury decides just how much money Giuliani has to fork over for being an enormous asshole.
So this week, the parties convened in Judge Howell’s courtroom to haggle about the price.
Now, if you’re Giuliani, maybe you want to for once in your godforsaken 80 years on this Earth shut up and not make things worse for yourself. But you’re not Giuliani, Giuliani is Giuliani, and as such, he just can’t help himself.
Speaking to reporters Monday evening following the first day of trial, Giuliani claimed that everything he said about the two women in the wake of the 2020 election was true. Giuliani also repeated the false claim that “they were engaged in changing votes.”
When a reporter responded there was no proof of such an allegation, Giuliani said: “Oh you’re damn right there is. Stay tuned.”
Giuliani also told reporters that he didn’t regret making the statements he was in court learning how many millions of dollars he’d have to pay for making, and that the real truth would come out when he testified. It was a markedly different tone from that of his lawyer, Joe Sibley, who had told the court on Monday that Freeman and Moss were “good people” who had not deserved to have their lives turned upside down.
Mean Judge Tells Rudy Giuliani To PAY THE F*CK UP To Nice Black Lady Election Workers He Sh*t-Talked
On Tuesday the judge noted that Giuliani’s comments might have opened him up to another defamation claim, at which point Moss and Shaye’s lawyers were spotted pricing Rolls Royce Ghosts on their phones, probably.
Sibley, not being an idiot, later announced that Giuliani would not in fact be testifying in his own defense, thereby depriving America of some more desperately needed comedy. Sibley said he made the decision because Freeman and Moss “have been through enough,” which does not sound like something you want to hear your defense lawyer say.
All this led up to Thursday’s closing arguments, during which Sibley made it clear he had decided that his only shot was to portray his own client as a doddering vegetable sliding into dementia and hope that the jury would take pity on him. To that end, he compared Giuliani to a flat-earther who, faced with clear evidence that the planet is in fact round, nonetheless clings to his delusions like they are a bottle of bourbon and the bartender just announced last call.
Sibley tried to get the jury to bite on the heroic Giuliani of yesteryear, saying the former mayor “shouldn’t be defined by what’s happened in recent times,” which is a little like telling a jury, “Forget about my client having killed and eaten all those Freemasons the last five years. Try to define him by the previous 75 years of his life when he wasn’t killing and eating Freemasons.” Not that we’re accusing Rudy Giuliani of cannibalizing Freemasons, though at this point nothing would surprise us.
Sibley also said he hoped the jury would judge his client “by the entire character of who he is,” presumably while praying that those jurors don’t have access to Wonkette, where they can find a long list of examples of Rudy Giuliani showing his entire character.
As of Friday afternoon, the jury was still deliberating just how much debt Giuliani will spend his last remaining years laboring under. Freeman and Moss are asking for $43 million. Yr Wonkette would never tell you to bet the over.
None of your donations to Wonkette will go towards helping Rudy Giuliani pay the fuck up.
