In a court filing late Monday, plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss asked U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell to step in after Giuliani repeated to reporters outside the federal courthouse debunked allegations that the women tampered with the 2020 vote counting process.
“Everything I said about them is true,” Giuliani told reporters, according to an ABC News report cited by Freeman and Moss’s attorneys. He added, “Of course I don’t regret it … I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.”
Before the beginning of trial testimony in court on Tuesday morning, Howell scolded Giuliani, saying that his comments could support another defamation claim, and noted that defense attorney Joseph D. Sibley IV told jurors in his opening statement that the plaintiffs were good people. Sibley had said, “There’s no question these claimants were harmed. They didn’t deserve what happened to them,” while contesting how much Giuliani was to blame.
Sibley told Howell he was not sure the comments were reconcilable, but that he was not present and could not control all his client’s comments out of court. He also suggested Giuliani’s age might be at issue.
The case has taken “a toll on him,” Sibley said, adding that Giuliani is almost “80 years old.”
Howell deferred further consideration of the request by lawyers for Freeman and Moss, saying it was time to bring in jurors and begin the day’s trial testimony, which focused on how Georgia state investigators debunked misleading security video footage that Giuliani repeatedly claimed in the weeks after the 2020 election showed the two workers bringing in “suitcases” full of fake votes for Joe Biden.
A jury of eight has been in court for Giuliani’s trial since Monday. Howell instructed jurors that she had earlier found him liable for more than a dozen defamatory statements, and that the only question is how much he should pay in damages for the violent threats and harassment Freeman and Moss received.
After the judge upbraided Giuliani, trial resumed Tuesday morning with testimony from an investigator before Moss, 39, took the stand.
She said what happened on Dec. 4, 2020 — the day after Giuliani tweeted video from State Farm Arena and accused “supervisors” of pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under a table after poll workers had gone home — changed her life.
“That was the day that everything changed, everything in my life changed … Everything just flipped upside down … On that day lies were spread about me and my mom … crazy lies,” Moss said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.