Rudy Giuliani won’t testify in defamation damages trial

An attorney said Rudy Giuliani will not testify Thursday in the trial to determine how much he will have to pay after he admitted to falsely accusing two Georgia election workers of fraud following the 2020 presidential election.

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In July, Giuliani admitted to making false statements about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter who volunteered to count votes at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena during the 2020 presidential election, WSB-TV reported. A federal judge later ruled that the attorney and former New York City mayor defamed the pair and ordered him to pay tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees.

He had been expected to take the stand, although an attorney said as court convened on Thursday that he would not testify, NBC News and ABC News reported. A spokesman for Giuliani confirmed the decision to CNN.

Giuliani had been set to be the only witness presented by his defense attorneys, NBC News reported. Instead, the court will go directly into closing arguments on Thursday morning, according to The Guardian.

Freeman, who is Black, gave emotional testimony Wednesday while describing racist threats she endured after Giuliani shared a video of her counting votes during the 2020 presidential election, The Associated Press reported. She was forced to leave her home in January 2021 and eventually sold it, living out of her car for a while as the threats continued.

“I took it as though they were going to hang me with their ropes on my street,” she said, according to the AP. Later, she added, “I was scared. I didn’t know if they were coming to kill me.”

In tearful testimony, she described her ongoing fears of being recognized.

“It’s so scary, any time I go somewhere, if I have to use my name,” she testified, the AP reported. “I miss my old neighborhood because I was me, I could introduce myself. Now I don’t have a name, really.”

Giuliani has argued that his statements about Freeman and Moss didn’t cause damage to the women and that his comments were protected speech, CNN reported. He earlier told reporters that he looked forward to presenting his side of the story during his trial, according to ABC News.

“Everything I said about them is true,” he told the news network on Monday, prompting a rebuke from Judge Beryl Howell.

His trial comes as court proceedings continue in Georgia, where he and 18 others, including Trump, were indicted in August on allegations that they racketeered in order to keep the former president in power following his 2020 presidential election loss.

Giuliani, who headed the legal team for the Trump reelection campaign, has pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges stemming from the case.