Dem
51
GOP
49
These days Rudy Giuliani is playing some weird game that no one else seems to understand. In 2020, he claimed that Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, both of them Georgia election workers, were stuffing the ballot box. They got death threats and had to hide. Their lives were destroyed. When they finally landed on their feet again in Dec. 2021, they sued Giuliani for defamation. Giuliani didn't provide the documentation U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered him to produce during the discovery process. Instead he conceded that he did say the things they accused him of saying, but asserted that the First Amendment gives him the right to say whatever he wants to.
Yesterday, Howell had enough of his dilly-dallying. She ended the case by noting that as a lawyer and former prosecutor, he knew the law very well and simply refused to comply. Consequently, she ruled for the two plaintiffs. In her 57-page ruling, she wrote: "Giuliani has submitted declarations with concessions turned slippery on scrutiny and excuses designed to shroud the insufficiency of his discovery compliance. The bottom line is that Giuliani has refused to comply with his discovery obligations and thwarted plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea 'ArShaye' Moss' procedural rights to obtain any meaningful discovery in this case."
Both Freeman and Moss testified before the House January 6 committee. They were very emotional about how Giuliani had ruined their lives. But she who laughs last, laughs best, as they say. Sometime later this year or in early 2024 there will be a second trial whose purpose is to determine the damages Giuliani has to pay the two women. It is almost certain to run into the millions. Giuliani had absolutely no legitimate reason to defame the women, whom he didn't even know. He was simply being malicious. He has already been hit for $90,000 for payment of the Moss and Freeman's lawyers' fees and may get hit with more. He is also going to need at least $500,000 and probably much more for his own lawyers in the Georgia RICO case. Oh, and Dominion Voting Systems, which recently extracted $787 million from Fox News for lying about their company, has an active lawsuit against Giuliani as well, also for lying about it. In addition there is the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, which says Giuliani is not cooperating because "the dog ate my homework."
Donald Trump is holding a fundraiser for America's Former Mayor in September. He might try to structure that by putting that money in a trust or something else that Freeman and Moss couldn't get at, but her lawyers are probably already thinking of the arguments they will use when they sue to get at the money anyway. The lawyers will probably get 30-40% of whatever they can shake loose from Giuliani. That could easily be in the seven figures, so they are highly motivated to go to the mat on this.
Giuliani is reported to be almost broke. He recently put his Manhattan co-op apartment up for sale for $6.5 million at Sotheby's. It is on East 66th St. at Madison Avenue, a top location, but the building is from 1906. Did they have fiber optic Internet then? Presumably not, since Al Gore hadn't been born yet. And besides, like Trump, Giuliani probably doesn't know how to use a computer. Is the building even wired for telephones or electricity? Here is Sotheby's listing if you care to put in a bid. Zillow lists a pending sale of another apartment in the building with 4,000 sq. ft. and an asking price of $8 million. From the floor plan of Giuliani's apartment on the Sotheby's Website, we estimate its size at 3,000 sq. ft. If another apartment in the building is going for $2,000 per square foot then Giuliani's apartment is indeed worth something like $6 million, minus the cost to fumigate it. However, Giuliani may not own the apartment free and clear. He may have one or more mortgages on it. The fact that he is selling his lovely bachelor pad (his third divorce was finalized in 2019) indicates that he is indeed in need of some quick cash. He won't be able to raise it by lawyering (assuming he could find any clients at this point) since he is in the process of being disbarred.
In summary, Giuliani just lost a defamation lawsuit and two others (Dominion and Smartmatic) are in progress. And of course, there are his soon-to-be astronomical legal costs in the RICO case. And heaven help him if Special Counsel Jack Smith indicts him in Washington after Trump's trial is over. He should have stopped when he was ahead after 9/11, continued giving speeches to big companies at $100K a pop, and gone out as a hero. He might well end up dying in prison as a pauper. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. (V)