[ad_1]
CNN
—
After his first day in Washington, DC, in a courtroom where a jury will determine how much he owes two former Georgia election workers for defamation, the Donald Trump’s election lawyer Rudy Giuliani says everything he said about the two women is true.
The federal judge overseeing the case has already ruled that Giuliani spread false information about Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss after the 2020 election.
The impeachment trial began Monday with jury selection and opening statements, but after the trial ended for the day, Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, continued to attack government and the mayor of New York, to Freeman and Moss.
“Everything I said about them is true,” Giuliani told reporters.
“Of course I don’t regret it,” Giuliani said when asked if he regretted his actions. “I was telling the truth. They were involved in changing the votes.”
When a journalist responded that there was no proof of such an allegation, Giuliani said: “Oh damn you there is. Stay still.”
Freeman and Moss want the trial judge to tell Giuliani that statements like those are not admissible in court from him or his attorneys.
“There is no point in saying whether the accused Giuliani testified in such a way as those statements,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said in a court filing late Monday“he will clearly violate the previous orders of the Court in this case to fully establish, and reaffirm, all the elements of the liability established, including the statements of the defendant Giuliani that are false. ”
The trial is revealing for the first time before a Washington, DC, jury the actions of Trump’s lawyers and campaigning, months before the former president is set to go on trial in the same courthouse in criminal charges related to the 2020 election. Giuliani’s efforts also lead to criminal charges against Trump, and Trump, his legal team and his campaign are legally considered conspirators in the defamation case.
Giuliani has been charged with defamation and owes more than $230,000 to Freeman and Moss after failing to respond to parts of their lawsuit. The mother and daughter are now seeking tens of millions of dollars, saying they suffered emotional and reputational harm after Giuliani accused them of false allegations of abuse. the elections in Georgia.
The women are asking a jury to consider awarding them between $15.5 million and $43 million for reputational damage they suffered alone from a series of private statements by Giuliani and others. , including Trump and his campaign, was made about them.
In addition, they are also seeking compensation for their emotional distress, attorneys’ fees and for a jury to convict Giuliani as “punishment for his outrageous behavior and harassment of himself and others” in the future – in what can be an alarming amount. .
During opening statements, Von DuBose, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, showed video footage and played audio in which Giuliani repeated false statements that two poll workers had tampered with ballots and obtained on the video the USB drive is allegedly passed as part of the theft-theft. plan.
None of those statements are true, and the USB drive is a ginger mint. DuBose held up one of the mints Monday for jurors to see.
But those claims led to a flood of threats and harassment on social media, both vocal and personal, against Moss and Freeman. DuBose played offensive audio that the plaintiffs received in which they were called racist and other slurs. Some of the messages contain death threats.
“Have a good life. What’s left,” one person said in an audio clip played Monday.
DuBose said those messages were just a small sample of the “hundreds and hundreds of messages” and threats Moss and Freeman received.
Giuliani’s false accusations “had the strongest influence on the world: The social media accounts of Donald J. Trump,” another lawyer for the two women, Mike Gottlieb, told the team. judge
“When you hear the evidence … think of a decision that sends a message,” Gottlieb said.
In his own opening statement, Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Sibley indicated that there was interference with Freeman and Moss and that the jury would award damages against his client. But he argued that the amount the plaintiffs are seeking is far more than what Giuliani owes them because of his behavior.
Sibley said at one point that what the plaintiffs are asking for in damages is the “humanitarianism of the death penalty.”
“They are trying to stop Mr. Giuliani,” he told the jury.
“There is absolutely no question that these plaintiffs were victims,” Sibley said. “They didn’t deserve what happened to them.”
But, he said, “it involved a lot of people. It wasn’t just Rudy Giuliani.”
Sibley once said that Freeman and Moss asked for more damage than what the jury awarded to actor Johnny Depp in a defamation case last year. In that case, Depp was awarded $10 million in monetary damages and $5 million in punitive damages in a case involving his ex-wife.
But the judge in charge of Giuliani’s case made it clear that he did not want the jury to consider the truth of that case when they made the decision that Freeman and Moss would not be charged.
“Mr. Sibley, let’s stay on this case,” said District Judge Beryl Howell.
The former New York mayor is expected to testify in his own defense, but his attorney did not say during last week’s hearing whether Giuliani would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. on the table.
On the other hand, Moss and Freeman’s team plans to show jurors photos of other Trump campaign members such as attorney Jenna Ellis taking the Fifth or if he refuses to answer questions at his command.
Although Giuliani admitted in July that he made defamatory comments about Moss and Freeman, he tried to argue that his comments did not harm the two women and that his comments about voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 election protected speech.
But Giuliani lost in court in August after Howell decided he could not provide information sought by subpoenas.
Howell rejected Giuliani’s criticism that he was buried in litigation costs, which he called “a cloak of corruption.”
CNN previously reported that Giuliani was fighting the costs of several legal challenges he faces related to his work for Trump after the 2020 election, and in a court filing in August, he said Giuliani is out of cash.
To ease some of the financial problems, Giuliani leased his 3-bedroom apartment in Manhattan for $6.5 million, which Howell showed to make the case that Giuliani could pay for the damages, along with a reimbursement he received from Trump and his trip on a private jet. when he moved to Fulton County Georgia’s election malpractice court.
This article has been updated with additional information.