Georgia election workers who faced death threats ask judge to hit Giuliani with “severe” sanctions

Two Georgia election workers have alleged in new court filings that Rudy Giuliani did not share critical evidence in an ongoing defamation suit against Donald Trump’s former personal attorney. Atlanta poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss launched the lawsuit after it was determined that Giuliani advised Trump ally Boris Epshteyn via text to tell the former president about security camera footage of the two women shuffling ballots around, which Giuliani said would “live in history as the theft of the state.” Since late 2020, the women have faced a barrage of attacks from MAGA supporters, stoked by Giuliani and Trump’s public reference to the women and claims of election fraud.

Now, amid the legal battle, Freeman and Moss have alleged that Giuliani ignored court orders mandating him to share his correspondence with Epshteyn, asking in the new brief that a U.S. district judge impose “severe” sanctions on Giuliani in the hopes that they will be granted a total victory in the suit via “default judgment.” Freeman and Moss’s attorneys have stated that the evidence they received in relation to the suit did not come from Giuliani, but from other witnesses and Trump allies. “He failed to take any steps to preserve relevant electronic evidence,” the lawyers said, adding that Giuliani has blamed the Justice Department for seizing and reportedly wiping his electronic devices. He has also cited difficulty accessing his iCloud account, per Politico. 

“The requests by these lawyers were deliberately overly burdensome, and sought information well beyond the scope of this case—including divorce records—in an effort to harass, intimidate and embarrass Mayor Rudy Giuliani,” Giuliani’s political adviser Ted Goodman said in a statement to Salon. “It’s part of a larger effort to smear and silence Mayor Giuliani for daring to ask questions, and for challenging the accepted narrative. They can’t take away the fact that Giuliani is objectively one of the most effective prosecutors in American history who took down the Mafia, cleaned up New York City and comforted the nation following 9/11.”