Giuliani to face Georgia poll workers as defamation case heads to trial

While counting the results of Georgia’s 2020 election, Fulton County poll worker Ruby Freeman passed her daughter, another poll worker named Shaye Moss, a ginger mint.  

But longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani claimed a video of that interaction showed evidence of election fraud against former President Trump — proof of the mother-daughter pair passing a USB drive between them to scan ballots hidden in suitcases under tables at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, according to a report by Georgia’s State Election Board.  

In the months that followed, the poll workers were subjected to a barrage of threats stemming from Giuliani’s baseless accusations. 

“I’ve 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,” Freeman said in a deposition with the House Jan. 6 committee.  

On Monday, Freeman and Moss will come face-to-face in court with Giuliani, as a trial over his false claims against them gets underway in Washington, D.C., federal court. Giuliani and the two poll workers are required to attend the trial, which is expected to last about a week in full. A jury of eight Washington residents will decide the case.

The two election workers sued Giuliani in December 2021 on claims of “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and punitive damage.”

“Defendant Rudy Giuliani bears substantial and outsized responsibility for the campaign of partisan character assassination of Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss,” the Georgia election workers wrote in a May 2022 amended complaint. 

They further accused Giuliani of orchestrating a “sustained smear campaign” against them by repeatedly accusing them of partaking in the purported “crime of the century.” 

A series of probes led by three law enforcement agencies found that the claims against Freeman and Moss “were false and unsubstantiated.” Giuliani later wrote in court filings he will “not contest” that his statements were “false” and “carry meaning that is defamatory,” but he maintained that they were “constitutionally protected.” 

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell already found the former New York City mayor civilly liable for those claims; the trial will determine how much money he owes them as a result.

The trial is likely just the beginning of court battles between Giuliani and the poll workers. 

The mother and daughter are expected to serve as key witnesses in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s racketeering case against Giuliani, Trump and more than a dozen others accused of joining a criminal conspiracy to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election. A date for that trial has not yet been set, though state prosecutors have requested an August start. 

Freeman’s name, in particular, appears some 40 times throughout the sprawling indictment. 

One of Giuliani’s 13 counts was linked to his claims that Freeman, Moss and an unidentified man were “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine” to be used to “infiltrate the crooked Dominion voting machines,” which state prosecutors say violated Georgia’s law against making false statements and writings. 

After Giuliani’s false claims thrust Freeman and her daughter into the spotlight, a handful of Trump allies allegedly attempted to influence Freeman’s statements about what happened at the arena, purporting to “offer her help,” according to the 98-page indictment.

Illinois pastor Stephen Lee traveled to Freeman’s home and spoke with her neighbor, intending to mislead Freeman and “influence her testimony in an official proceeding,” prosecutors claim. Lee then enlisted Black Voices for Trump leader Harrison Floyd to help persuade Freeman, who feared talking to Lee “because he was a white man.” Both Freeman and Moss are Black. And a month later, Floyd recruited Trevian Kutti — a former publicist for rapper Ye, previously known as Kanye West — to join their efforts, the indictment says.  

Kutti met with Freeman at the behest of an unidentified “high-profile individual” and urged Freeman to confess to Trump’s election fraud claims or go to jail within 48 hours, Reuters reported.

Lee, Floyd and Kutti are all charged alongside Giuliani in the Georgia case.  

Two other Georgia defendants, lawyers Jenna Ellis and Ray Smith III, were deposed as part of the poll workers’ case. Ellis pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after agreeing to cooperate with Fulton County prosecutors, while Smith has pleaded not guilty. 

However, their testimony, which is expected to be played during the trial, is likely to provide little insight. Howell said last week that Ellis asserted her Fifth Amendment right more than 400 times during the deposition and Smith more than 300 times.  

A lawyer for Giuliani said Tuesday that the ex-mayor plans to testify during the defamation trial and does not intend to assert that right. Lawyers for Freeman and Moss told the judge that they plan to call four witnesses, in addition to playing video clips from several depositions. 

Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, told The Hill in an emailed statement that Giuliani is still the “same man who took down the Mafia, cleaned up New York City and comforted the nation following September 11th.”

“In the fullness of time, this will be looked at as a dark chapter in our nation’s history, as those in power attempt to destroy their partisan political opposition in ways that cause great, irreparable harm to the U.S. justice system,” Goodman said.