In a surprising reversal, Rudy Giuliani will not testify in his civil defamation trial, his lawyers announced Thursday morning.
Giuliani was expected to take the stand as the only defense witness. His absence likely means lawyers will go straight to closing arguments when the hearing begins at 10 a.m.
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It’s unclear exactly why Giuliani, who had promised less than 24 hours earlier to take the stand, chose to stand down, though he had been reprimanded multiple times by the judge for negative comments he made about the plaintiffs and their counsel outside the courtroom.
Two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, are suing Giuliani for millions of dollars in damages for repeatedly pushing bogus conspiracy theories about them trying to fix the 2020 presidential election.
After Tuesday’s court proceedings, Giuliani referred to the case against him as a “political hit job” to reporters outside the Washington, D.C., courtroom. He took it further later that evening, disparaging the plaintiffs during a livestream shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“They’re seeking $40 million. Oh, yeah. They’re seeking $40 million for the damage that I allegedly did to them. One of them did testify that she has no money. They do have an endless number of lawyers in the courtroom, however, for people that don’t have any money,” Giuliani said.
He then rattled off how many lawyers the plaintiffs had at their table in the courtroom.
During the trial, the mother-daughter duo told jurors in tearful testimony how they were “terrorized” by Giuliani’s lies and how it upended their lives and damaged their reputations.
The former New York mayor’s accusations against them led to threats, harassment, and harm, they said. The duo, who are black, received messages from people claiming they deserved to be hanged and hanged close enough to the United States Capitol so the public could “hear their necks snap.”
Giuliani falsely claimed Freeman and Moss had engaged in nefarious activity to give President Joe Biden the edge in Georgia over former President Donald Trump. Giuliani had been briefly tapped to head Trump’s legal strategy in the immediate aftermath of his loss.
Specifically, in the days, weeks, and months following the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost, Giuliani claimed Freeman and Moss “engaged in surreptitious illegal activity” and said they were caught on camera “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.” The USB port Giuliani spoke about turned out to be a ginger mint.
The claims about Freeman and Moss were quickly debunked by Georgia election officials, but that did not stop Giuliani, who has maintained he has every right to question what he believed was election fraud. He conceded in July that he made public comments falsely claiming Freeman and Moss had committed fraud while counting ballots at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta but claimed his statements were protected under his First Amendment rights.
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District Judge Beryl Howell has already found Giuliani liable for defamation and civil conspiracy for his false statements about the two Georgia election workers. This week’s trial is about damages awarded to Freeman and Moss, who are seeking $15.5 million to $43 million. The jury could also add millions in punitive damages.
On Wednesday, a visibly shaken Freeman described the racist and violent threats she received after Giuliani spread lies about her and her daughter.
“Hope they lock you up and throw away the key, you disgusting B**** traitor,” one of the messages read.
“I received so many on my phone that at one time, my phone crashed and just died,” Freeman testified. She was asked by her attorney to read some of them out loud.
“Pack your s***. They are coming for you. I’m not far behind. I’m coming for you also. Trash will be taken to the street in bags,” one read.
Earlier in the week, Freeman’s daughter also gave emotional testimony about the threats she received and how they upended her life.
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During his opening statement, Giuliani’s lawyer, Joseph Sibley IV, attempted to offload the blame.
While he said that there was “no question these claimants were harmed” and that “they didn’t deserve what happened to them,” he added, “What happened to them happened because of a controversy involving a lot of people, not just Rudy Giuliani.”
