Rudy Giuliani, who served as a lawyer for former president Donald Trump, is no longer contesting as a legal matter that he made false and defamatory statements about two former Georgia election workers — but argues in a new court filing that what amounted to false claims about vote-rigging in the 2020 presidential election was constitutionally protected speech and did not damage the workers.
The filing late Tuesday in federal court in Washington is the latest twist in a lawsuit brought by Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, who counted ballots in Fulton County, Ga., during the November 2020 election.
In a defamation lawsuit filed in late 2021, the pair asserted that they became the focus of unfounded conspiracy theories peddled by Giuliani and employees of the right-wing news organization One America News. Giuliani has denied the claims. OAN settled with Freeman and Moss for an undisclosed sum last year.
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In Giuliani’s latest filing, the former New York mayor stipulates that he made statements that “carry meaning that is defamatory per se.” He also stipulates in the two-page statement that some of his statements were “false,” as the election workers alleged.
His lawyer, however, stressed that Giuliani was not admitting to the plaintiffs’ allegations but instead was seeking to speed up the litigation through a legal maneuver.
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