This article originally appeared on JoeHoft.com and was republished with permission.
Rudy Giuliani was found guilty by Obama-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell in Washington DC because he didn’t turn over devices that the FBI took from his home.
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Rudy Giuliani is legally liable for defaming two Georgia election workers who became the subject of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election that were amplified by Donald Trump in the final weeks of his presidency. In an unsparing, 57-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell said Giuliani had flagrantly violated her orders to preserve and produce relevant evidence to the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, resulting in a “default” judgment against him. She also ordered him to pay Freeman and Moss “punitive” damages for failing to fulfill his obligations.
US District Judge Beryl Howell
The ruling means the case will now proceed to a trial purely to determine the amount of damages Giuliani will have to pay the two election workers.
“Just as taking shortcuts to win an election carries risks — even potential criminal liability — bypassing the discovery process carries serious sanctions,” Howell wrote.
Clearly, she is biased beyond repair and unable to oversee any case based on her leanings.
Hidden in far-left Politico’s report is the following:
Giuliani has blamed several factors for his difficulties in searching his records for evidence relevant to the case. Those factors include the FBI’s seizure of his devices in 2021 as part of a foreign-influence investigation (which did not lead to any charges against him) and serious personal financial difficulties he has faced since Trump’s defeat in 2020.
“The FBI took every electronic device in my apartment and my law office,” Giuliani said at a May hearing in the suit. Indignantly insisting that he was not trying to deny the plaintiffs access to evidence related to their claims, he said: “I’ve been dealing with this for 50 years. I understand the obligation. … There’s nothing I want to hide. I’d like them to see everything. … Not being perfect doesn’t mean you’re deleting things. I don’t delete things.”
Ted Goodman, a political advisor to Giuliani, echoed that point Wednesday, calling the ruling “a prime example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the process is the punishment.”
“This decision should be reversed, as Mayor Giuliani is wrongly accused of not preserving electronic evidence that was seized and held by the FBI,” Goodman said.
