New York’s former mayor Giuliani repeatedly spread the election fraud lie as Trump’s lawyer. He has already been found guilty of defaming two election workers – now a jury is determining the damages.
A defamation trial has begun against ex-President Donald Trump’s former private lawyer Rudy Giuliani over fraud allegations surrounding the 2020 US presidential election. A jury in the US capital Washington will decide how much damages the former New York mayor must pay to two election workers from the state of Georgia.
Federal judge Beryl Howell had already ruled in August that Giuliani was liable for defamation against Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss. That’s why the civil trial that has now started is only about the amount of the payment that the 79-year-old Giuliani is sentenced to pay.
Freeman and Moss are demanding compensation and damages of up to $43 million (around €40 million).
Moss: “That turned my life upside down”
After Trump’s election defeat against Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020, Giuliani was a central figure in the elected incumbent’s attempts to overturn the outcome of the election and thus stay in office. The lawyer made allegations of election fraud that have been widely refuted and also targeted election workers Freeman and Moss, who worked in Fulton County, which includes the metropolis of Atlanta.
Moss later testified as a witness before the parliamentary committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. She said she was the target of “hateful” and “racist” threats of violence after false election fraud allegations were made against her. “That turned my life upside down.”
Giuliani is indicted with Trump in Atlanta
Giuliani now has a number of legal problems. He was charged with Trump in a criminal case in Atlanta on allegations of election manipulation. Giuliani was once highly respected as mayor of New York; after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he was even referred to as “America’s mayor.”
Giuliani, who was born into an Italian immigrant family in New York’s Brookyln district in 1944, later became Trump’s loyal companion. In April 2018, Trump hired the former prosecutor as his personal attorney. After the Republican’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Giuliani drew ridicule with a series of bizarre appearances denouncing alleged voter fraud.
Giuliani hasn’t worked for Trump for quite some time.