Legal experts: Giuliani backed out of “crazy” testimony — but it may backfire with the jurors

Lawyers for Rudy Giuliani announced that Donald Trump’s former personal attorney would not take the stand in his defamation damages trial just minutes before the proceedings were set to begin Thursday, the day he was expected to sit for testimony, Politico first reported.  

Giuliani told reporters outside the courtroom Wednesday that he intended to testify. “I intend to. You always leave them guessing, right?” he said, per The Messenger, after trial proceedings ended for that day.

The reason why Giuliani will not be taking the stand has not yet been revealed. But legal experts argue that the decision was in the former New York mayor’s best interest.

“Allowing Rudy Giuliani to take the stand would have been the stupidest thing in the world from his attorneys’ perspective— and by that I really mean his Georgia legal team— and so I am not terribly surprised he isn’t taking the stand. I would have been shocked had it happened,” Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor and political scientist, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

“As I expected, Giuliani has followed in Trump’s footsteps and decided not to take the stand after saying he would,” George Washington University law professor Randall Eliason tweeted. “It would have been crazy for him to testify with the criminal charges hanging over his head. Crazy even for him, I mean.”

MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang noted that jurors had expected to hear from Giuliani on Thursday.

“When you make these kinds of promises & then you don’t deliver, jurors will hold it against you,” she wrote. “Giuliani clearly doesn’t have problems speaking *outside* of the courtroom: jurors will take note of this, too.”

The Georgia election workers who brought the defamation lawsuit against Giuliani two years ago — Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss — delivered emotional testimonies in the trial earlier this week. 

While on the witness stand Wednesday, Freeman said she was already overwhelmed by a violent campaign of racist threats against her three years ago when Trump placed a bigger target on her back, Politico reports.

She described how Giuliani falsely accused her of tampering with ballots during the 2020 election in a smear campaign that resulted in her receiving a deluge of threatening messages and capsized her life. But after the former president amplified those claims in an infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the threats became more virulent. 

“I just felt like ‘really?’ This is the former president talking about me? Me? How mean, how evil? I just was devastated,” Freeman recalled, holding back tears. “I didn’t do nothing. It just made me feel … you don’t care that I’m a real person.”

“He didn’t know what he was talking about really,” Freeman continued, addressing Trump as “45″ in a refusal to use his name. “He had no clue what he was talking about. He was just trying to put a name to somebody stealing ballots, which was totally a lie.”

Trump referred to Freeman 18 times during the Jan. 2, 2021, call with Raffensperger, an audio recording of which was published in the media the following day. Freeman’s attorneys pointed out in court that Trump’s rhetoric mirrored language crafted by Giuliani’s legal team as part of a last-ditch PR campaign related to their effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat. 

As the claims caught fire among Trump’s base — even while Georgia election officials sought to debunk and quell them — Freeman testified that the threats intensified. People began to show up at her home, send her threatening voicemails and letters, and blast her social media accounts en masse with violent and racist messages. 

Following advice from the FBI, Freeman said, she eventually left her longtime home after learning that her name was on a “death list” someone who had just been arrested had kept. That part of her testimony likely referred to Thomas Caldwell, an affiliate of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers who was one of the defendants arrested just days after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. 

Giuliani is the only remaining defendant in the lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell has ruled he is liable as part of a civil conspiracy for Trump and others’ statements connected to his 2020 presidential campaign. The women did not sue Trump in this case.

After finding that Giuliani had eluded demands for evidence related to the civil case, Howell ruled that Giuliani was legally responsible for defaming the duo and left jurors to decide the amount of damages the former mayor must pay Freeman and Moss. Jurors could begin deliberation as soon as Thursday. 

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The women are seeking between $14 million and $41 million from Giuliani for defamation and emotional distress alongside punitive damages. The judge previously ordered Giuliani to pay the women’s legal fees, and he owes them $230,000 for failing to respond to parts of their lawsuit.

Freeman recounted some of the threats she received during her Wednesday testimony, often sobbing, choking up or wiping away tears with a tissue. 

“Kill yourself now so we can save AMMO,” one message read.

“I hope the Federal government hangs you and your daughter from the Capitol dome you treasonous piece of shit!” read another. “I pray that I will be sitting close enough to hear your necks snap.”

Giuliani had been present in the courtroom as Freeman and Moss recalled how his lies had upended their lives, but exited the first two days of trial this week issuing defiant statements to reporters, defending his attacks against the duo and calling the case a “political hit job.”

According to Politico, like during Moss’ testimony Tuesday, Giuliani had little reaction to Freeman’s testimony as he recounted the terror she felt as the false claims began to proliferate. 

“I felt horrible. I felt I was terrorized. I was scared,” Freeman said. “The phone just kept ringing and ringing.”

Freeman said she now wears a mask and sunglasses outside her new home, which she’s outfitted with security cameras and alarm systems. 

“My life is just messed up. It’s really messed up all because somebody put me on blast, just tweet my name out to their millions of followers,” she said.

Freeman spent approximately 90 minutes on the witness stand before Giuliani’s attorney, Joseph Sibley was given the chance to cross-examine her. He instead chose not to, simply telling Freeman — who had appeared at the trial since it began Monday — that it was nice to “finally” have the chance to meet her. 

Sibley had previously said that he planned to call Giuliani to the stand to respond to the allegations against him but has since acknowledged incongruences between him and his client since the former mayor has contradicted him in statements to the press multiple times.