Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani will pay more than $89,000 in attorneys fees to two Georgia election workers suing him for defamation over false claims made after the 2020 election, after being sanctioned for failing to turn over evidence in the case, part of a string of consequences the right-wing lawyer has faced stemming from his failed efforts to overturn the presidential race.
Rudy Giuliani leaves the U.S. District Court on May 19, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Giuliani was sanctioned in June and forced to pay attorneys fees in the ongoing defamation case brought by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who became the subject of election fraud conspiracy theories pushed by Giuliani and others on the far right in the aftermath of the election and first sued the attorney in 2021.
Giuliani was sanctioned after he failed to turn over evidence in the case as part of discovery, with U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell writing Giuliani “arbitrarily limited” a search of his records and conducted only an “imprecise ‘manual search’” of his text messages and other communications before being compelled in court to provide more documents.
The amount that Giuliani would have to pay wasn’t specified until Wednesday night, when Freeman and Moss said in a court filing that they had incurred $89,172.50 in attorneys fees that Giuliani must be forced to pay.
Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Sibley has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The defamation case remains ongoing and Giuliani could still be forced to pay more as part of the lawsuit, which asks for an unspecified amount in damages. The election workers allege Giuliani “orchestrated a sustained smear campaign” against them that made them the “objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment,” accusing the attorney of intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy in addition to the defamation claims.
Giuliani was the Trump campaign’s main lawyer that helped to orchestrate the ex-president’s legal campaign to overturn the 2020 election—an effort that overwhelmingly failed. The former New York City mayor, who only formally represented the campaign in court in one case, has faced a slew of consequences for the role he played in the aftermath of the election, including having his law license suspended. In addition to Freeman and Moss’ lawsuit, he’s also been sued for defamation by voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic for false election fraud claims involving their machines. It’s also possible Giuliani could face criminal charges, as he’s been informed he’s a target in an ongoing investigation by the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney’s office. Giuliani has defended his post-election efforts and decried the efforts to punish him, saying after his license was suspended that the decision was “a one-sided decision not based on evidence.”