Giuliani Forfeits in a Defamation Case, but Is He Playing a Long Game — or Is He in Financial Trouble? Or Both?

Mayor Giuliani’s loss, via forfeiture, in a defamation suit brought by two Georgia poll workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — suggests that his financial and legal affairs are in a perilous state, even as his life as a criminal defendant is just getting under way. Mr. Giuliani’s civil case did not reach the merits because a federal judge ruled that he has fallen behind on the bills that allow him to access the electronic records necessary to litigate the case and respond to subpoenas. A trial to set his liability will be heard by a federal district court judge, Beryl Howell, in the coming months.It could be, though, that Mr. Giuliani’s apparent concession of the case is less a matter of finance and more a strategic choice. He could be refusing to produce discovery because of fear of the legal exposure it could create for his criminal cases. He could reckon that losing the defamation case could be a small price to pay — in liberty, if not from his purse. Judge Howell, in a ruling that could be described as withering, appears attuned to the possibility that Mr. Giuliani’s punting of this case is in the service of a larger design. She reckons that he has engaged in “willful shirking of his discovery obligations,” surfacing the question of intent. She writes that “just as taking shortcuts to win an election carries risks — even potential criminal liability — bypassing the discovery process carries serious sanction.”The judge adds that “donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery.”Judge Howell reckons that what Mr. Giuliani has produced thus far is “largely a single page of communications, blobs of indecipherable data, a sliver of the financial documents required to be produced, and a declaration and two stipulations.” She alleges that Mr. Giuliani has “given only lip service to compliance with his discovery obligations.” The former mayor’s forfeit could not have come as a complete surprise, as Mr. Giuliani has already been ordered to pay more than $90,000 in attorneys fees. He had already admitted that his statements about the poll workers “carry meaning that is defamatory per se” and were “actionable” and “false.”It did not appear, though, that Mr. Giuliani had thrown in the towel completely. Before Wednesday, he had asserted that his statements were “constitutionally protected” and intimated that he was holding “legal defenses” in reserve. One possibility is that his stores of cash could not sustain that fight.The statements that could drive Mr. Giuliani even further into the red centered on allegations of fraud on the part of the poll workers. He accused them of, among other things, “passing around USB ports, as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.” Both Mmes. Freeman and Moss testified before the January 6 committee. Of particular interest could be links between this civil case and the criminal one being prepped by the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis. President Trump mentioned Ms. Freeman during his phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state, Bradley Raffensperger, which the prosecutor maintains was a crucial moment in the unfolding of what she maintains was a “criminal enterprise.”Judge Howell appears to have one eye on that larger context, as she writes that Mr. Giuliani’s apparent preference to concede the case rather than produce discovery “may be due to the fact, about which he has made no secret, that he faces liability, both civil and criminal, in other investigations and civil lawsuits.”

Giuliani Forfeits in a Defamation Case, but Is He Playing a Long Game — or Is He in Financial Trouble? Or Both?

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