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- Rudy Giuliani got a talking-to from the judge in his ongoing defamation trial Tuesday.
- After the first day, Giuliani said two Georgia election workers were "changing votes" and he had "proof."
- The judge already ruled that he defamed the workers and failed to produce evidence of his claims.
The judge overseeing Rudy Giuliani's defamation trial scolded him Tuesday after the disgraced former New York City mayor continued to falsely allege that two Georgia poll workers manipulated ballots in the 2020 election — even after the judge already ruled those claims were false.
US District Judge Beryl Howell said Giuliani's remarks, made outside the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, on Monday evening, could be grounds for additional defamation claims.
"Was Mr. Giuliani just playing for the cameras?" Howell asked, according to Politico.
After the first day of court proceedings Monday, Giuliani told journalists that everything he said about the election workers "was true" and that he had no regrets.
"Of course I don't regret it, I told the truth," Giuliani said. "They were engaged in changing votes."
He said people should "stay tuned" for "proof" of his claims about the workers' conduct during the election, which was more than three years ago.
The election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, first sued Giuliani in 2021, alleging he defamed them and triggered numerous death threats when he falsely claimed they manipulated ballots in Georgia's 2020 presidential election.
A statewide audit confirmed that now-President Joe Biden won the state's electoral college votes and that Giuliani's client, former President Donald Trump, had lost. A Georgia State Election Board investigation also found no evidence of widespread fraud or any wrongdoing on behalf of Moss and Freeman.
In a Monday night court filing, lawyers for Freeman and Moss brought Giuliani's recent remarks to Howell's attention. They asked the judge to instruct Giuliani not to make the same false claims in court in front of the jury.
"Needless to say, were Defendant Giuliani to testify in a manner remotely resembling those comments, he would be in plain violation of the Court's prior orders in this case conclusively affirming, and reaffirming, that all elements of liability have been established, including that Defendant Giuliani's defamatory statements were false," the lawyers wrote.
In court Tuesday morning, Howell asked whether Giuliani was contradicting the opening statement from his attorney, who had said Giuliani had acted regrettably toward Freeman and Moss, but that others were to blame for the threats they received.
"I'm not sure how it's reconcilable," Giuliani's attorney Joseph Sibley said, according to Politico.
In August, Howell handed Freeman and Moss a major win in their lawsuit against Giuliani. She ruled that Giuliani defamed them, and that he failed to produce sufficient evidence in his defense during the discovery process. Howell also slapped Giuliani with $132,000 in fees and fines to reimburse lawyers for Moss and Freeman for numerous costs, and for his business failing to produce evidence in the case.
The 8-person jury in the ongoing defamation trial will cover only damages for the defamation claims, which may reach as high as $43 million.
The trial, which is scheduled to last until Thursday, is one of numerous legal and financial headaches for Giuliani, a once-celebrated attorney who has fallen into disrepute after pushing lies about the 2020 election results.
Two election technology companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, each have pending defamation lawsuits against him. Giuliani is also, along with Trump, a co-defendant in a criminal case brought by prosecutors in Georgia over attempts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.