Rudy Giuliani Now Admits He Made False Statements About Georgia Poll Workers After 2020 Election
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As part of a push to convince Americans that Georgia's vote count was fraudulent, Giuliani publicized a video that purported to show election workers bringing in suitcases of false ballots for Biden
Rudy Giuliani now admits that he made false and defamatory statements about two Georgia poll workers following Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 presidential election.
In a document filed late Tuesday in Washington, D.C., the former New York City mayor says he no longer contests the accusations from the elections workers who are suing him — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — after he publicly accused them of rigging the vote in Georgia for Joe Biden.
From the filing: “Defendant Giuliani concedes solely for the purposes of this litigation … that [he] made the statements of and concerning plaintiffs. He does not dispute for the purposes of this litigation, that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory per se.”
After Trump lost the popular vote in Georgia — which has historically been a reliably red state — to Biden, he and his allies almost immediately began to pin the loss on fraud, all while pressuring officials there to "find" votes in his favor.
As part of that push to convince the American public that the vote was rigged, Giuliani publicized a video — which was also cited by Trump himself — that purports to show election workers bringing suitcases of false ballots for Biden into the State Farm Arena, then running them through the machines multiple times.
But the reality was far less nefarious, with state investigators who reviewed the surveillance tapes saying the "suitcases" were just the standard ballot containers issued by the county, and the election officials were just undertaking "normal ballot processing."
Related: Ga. Poll Workers Testify at Jan. 6 Capitol Riot Hearing About Living in Fear Since 2020 Election
Freeman and Moss testified before the Jan. 6 House Select committee in June 2022, detailing the treats they had received after Giuliani publicized the video.
"A lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me that I'll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, 'Be glad it's 2020 and not 1920.' A lot of them were racist, a lot of them were hateful," Moss, who had worked as an elections worker for over 10 years, said.
In addition to the lawsuit brought by Freeman and Moss, Giuliani is at least one of the subjects of a Georgia special grand jury probe into attempts to overturn the state's 2020 election results for Trump.
A subpoena issued to Giuliani in 2022 notes that he appeared before the Georgia state Senate in December 2020 and made "statements, both to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings, claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the November 2020 election and using the now-debunked State Farm Video in support of those statements."
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Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Giuliani has been interviewed in that probe, CNN reports.
The former New York City mayor is also defending himself against disbarment proceedings in both Washington, D.C. and New York.
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