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Last week’s defamation trial couldn’t have gone much worse for Rudy Giuliani. After a jury heard about the lies he told about former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and the hell these women were forced to endure, the jury awarded the plaintiffs more than $148 million total in damages.
As my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin explained, actually collecting that money will be “complicated,” and there’s quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding when and how the former New York City mayor will pay up. But in the meantime, there’s another to matter consider: As NBC News reported, Freeman and Moss have now sued the Republican lawyer again.
The new suit by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss seeks a court order permanently barring Giuliani “from persisting in his defamatory campaign” against the mother and daughter, arguing that he’s continued to falsely accuse them of committing election fraud even after a federal jury handed down last week’s verdict in Washington, D.C.
Michael Gottlieb, the lead attorney for the former Georgia election workers, spoke with Rachel on last night’s show about the case, and explained that this new case is necessary because the plaintiffs don’t believe that Giuliani “should be able to continue telling the same lies out on the street that he has been unable to defend and prove in court.”
If the case is successful, Gottlieb added, it would subject the Republican “to the supervision of a federal court.” If he continued to lie about Freeman and Moss anyway, he’d be at risk of being held in contempt of court.
“I think the reality here is that all we really wanted Rudy Giuliani to do is to take our client’s name out of his mouth,” Gottlieb concluded. “If he agreed to do that, we didn’t have to file this additional lawsuit, but he was unwilling to do it.”
At it turns out, shortly before the lawyer was making these comments on MSNBC, Giuliani appeared on Newsmax, a conservative outlet, and was asked whether he still believes the lies he told about Freeman and Moss. “Yeah,” the Republican replied. “Of course, they’ll sue me again for it when I say that, but yeah, I do.” He added that his lies were “absolutely true.”
If you’re thinking that these on-air comments are likely to be included in the litigation, you’re not alone. If you’re thinking that Giuliani’s defense counsel smacked his forehead as his client said this, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right about that, too.