Rudy Giuliani should be held in civil contempt for continuing to lie about two election workers to whom he already owes $148m for defaming, lawyers for the two women wrote in a court filing on Wednesday.
The request comes months after Giuliani agreed in court to never again accuse Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss of election fraud. Despite that agreement earlier this year, Giuliani continued to spread lies about them on his live-streamed show.
“You would think that they wouldn’t be allowed to take all my property until the thing was affirmed on appeal and I got a chance to show them that they never let me show the tapes that show them quadruple counting the … ballots,” he said during one episode on 12 November.
“Then … another one is, uh, they’re passing these little, little hard drives that we maintain were used to fix the machines, right, and they say it was candy. Well, you look at it … looks like a hard drive to me, and they told me it was a hard drive and there’s no proof that it was candy.”
Freeman and Moss have both been cleared of any wrongdoing by Georgia investigators. The lie that they fraudulently counted ballots was central to efforts by Giuliani, Donald Trump and others to try to overturn the election results.
On 14 November, Giuliani again repeated the lie that Freeman and Moss had tampered with the vote. He said: “You can see if you want in living color her quadruple counting votes and the people thrown out of the arena.”
Lawyers for Freeman and Moss wrote: “These statements repeat the exact same lies for which Mr Giuliani has already been held liable, and which he agreed to be bound by court order to stop repeating. They constitute unambiguous violations of the consent injunction. The court should hold Mr Giuliani in civil contempt and – following a hearing, if necessary – impose sanctions calculated to ensure Mr Giuliani’s compliance with the consent injunction.”
The lawyers asked the US district judge Beryl Howell, who oversaw the defamation case against Giuliani in Washington DC, to hold him in civil contempt for ignoring orders of the court. They did not specify what penalty he should face. Howell ordered Giuliani and his lawyers to appear for a hearing on 12 December.
Ted Goodman, a Giuliani spokesperson, said the request was “a dishonest and duplicitous attack meant to deprive Mayor Rudy Giuliani of his first amendment right to freedom of speech”.
“Mayor Giuliani, under the first amendment of the constitution, has every right to defend himself, especially as the other side consistently leaks to the press. The ongoing lawfare against Mayor Giuliani must end. It’s a complete abomination, and totally outrageous, to watch these people try and destroy this good and honest man who has dedicated his life to serving others.”
Giuliani has already turned over several luxury watches, his New York City apartment, and a 1980s Mercedes-Benz to Freeman and Moss.
