Rudy Giuliani conceded in a court filing Tuesday that he made “false” statements about two Georgia 2020 election workers who are suing him over baseless claims of fraud that he made against them.
“Defendant Giuliani, for the purposes of litigation only, does not contest that, to the extent the statements were statements of fact and other wise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false,” Giuliani wrote in a signed stipulation that he said was intended to “avoid unnecessary expenses in litigating what he believes to be unnecessary disputes.”
Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, have said their lives were turned upside down when conspiracy theorists, as well as then-President Donald Trump and his ally Giuliani, claimed they had committed election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A heavily edited, brief clip of security footage was widely circulated online and by Trump allies as supposed proof.
Giuliani had claimed that Freeman and Moss were “passing around USB ports like they were vials of heroin or cocaine.” In reality, as reflected in the Jan. 6 committee report, they were passing a ginger mint.
Freeman testified to the committee that she “lost my sense of security — all because a group of people, starting with Number 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani, decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.” The Jan. 6 committee called the duo’s treatment “callous, inhumane, and inexcusable.”
Michael J. Gottlieb, partner at Willkie, Farr & Gallagher LLP who serves on the legal team of Freeman and Moss, said in a statement Wednesday that they are "pleased with this major milestone" in response to Giuliani's filing.
“Giuliani’s stipulation concedes what we have always known to be true — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss honorably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election in full compliance with the law; and the allegations of election fraud he and former-President Trump made against them have been false since day one,” Gottlieb said. “While certain issues, including damages, remain to be decided by the court, our clients are pleased with this major milestone in their fight for justice, and look forward to presenting what remains of this case at trial.”
In a statement Wednesday morning, Ted Goodman, a Giuliani spokesman, disputed that the former New York mayor acknowledged his statements were false and added that Giuliani “did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss.”
“This is a legal issue, not a factual issue,” Goodman said. “Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The filing by Giuliani comes after Georgia’s State Election Board last month dismissed its yearslong investigation into alleged election fraud at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, clearing Freeman and Moss of wrongdoing.
The fraud claims were “unsubstantiated and found to have no merit,” the investigation concluded, reporting on the work of the FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and investigators from the secretary of state’s office vetting the alleged fraud.
