Lawyer highlights Giuliani’s continued false claims as election employees’ damages trial nears an in depth
WASHINGTON — An legal professional for 2 former Georgia election employees suing Rudy Giuliani for defamation highlighted throughout the trial’s closing on Thursday that the previous New York City mayor has not stopped repeating the false conspiracy idea asserting the employees meddled within the 2020 presidential election.
During his closing arguments, legal professional Michael Gottlieb performed a video of Giuliani outdoors the courthouse earlier this week repeating the false claims about his shoppers, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mom, Ruby Freeman, who introduced the motion towards Giuliani. Giuliani had beforehand conceded in court docket paperwork that he made public feedback falsely accusing the ladies of poll fraud.
“Mr Giuliani has shown over and over again he will not take our client’s names out of his mouth,” Gottlieb mentioned. “Facts will not stop him. He says he isn’t sorry and he’s telegraphing he will do this again. Believe him.”
Gottlieb described Freeman and Moss as “heroes,” including that “after everything they went through, they stood up and said, ‘no more.’” He additionally learn from a chapter in Giuliani’s e book on management the place the previous mayor mentioned his father instructed him by no means to be a bully. The lawyer mentioned: “If only Mr. Giuliani had listened.”
“The lies in this case became a sustained, deliberate, viral campaign, the purpose of which was to overturn an election and have these statements rocket around the world millions and millions of times,” Gottlieb mentioned.
The ladies’s legal professionals are asking for not less than $24 million for every lady in defamation damages alone. They’re additionally looking for compensation for his or her emotional hurt and punitive damages.
Giuliani’s lawyer has mentioned any award must be a lot much less, describing the damages the ladies are looking for because the “civil equivalent of the death penalty.” His lawyer has argued there is no such thing as a proof Giuliani himself inspired the harassment, noting that the right-wing web site Gateway Pundit was the primary to publish the surveillance video of the election employees slightly than the previous mayor.
Giuliani‘s defense rested Thursday morning without calling a single witness after the former mayor reversed course and decided not to take the stand. Giuliani‘s lawyer had told jurors in his opening statement that they would hear from his client but after his comments outside court, the judge barred him from claiming in testimony that his conspiracy theories were right. Giuliani is separately facing criminal charges in Georgia over his efforts to keep Trump in power and his testimony could have been used against him in that case.
“Unlike some other people they testified here under oath,” Gottlieb said of Freeman and Moss.
On the witness stand, Moss and Freeman recounted receiving a torrent of hateful and threatening messages after they became the targets of the conspiracy theory pushed by Giuliani and other Trump allies. The women told jurors the lies made them fear for their lives and described how they remain scared to go out in public years later.
Despite already being held liable in the case, Giuliani repeated his false claims about the women earlier this week. On Monday, he told reporters outside the courthouse that everything he said about the women was “true,” again accusing them of “engaging in changing votes.”
The case is among mounting legal and financial woes for the man once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his management after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults.
Giuliani is amongst 19 individuals charged in Georgia within the case accusing Trump and his allies of working to subvert the state’s 2020 election outcomes. Giuliani has pleaded not responsible and characterised the case as politically motivated.
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Richer reported from Boston.
