Rudy Giuliani has been held in contempt of court for the second time in a week after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., lambasted the former New York City mayor for repeatedly attacking a pair of election workers he defamed despite a court order that blocks him from repeating false statements against them.
Donald Trump’s former attorney was ordered to appear in court to answer for a string of recent statements falsely alleging the women had manipulated election results in 2020 — claims that landed him a $148 million defamation judgment in 2023.
District Judge Beryl Howell criticized Giuliani for his “baseless whining.” The former mayor called her “bloodthirsty” and “biased” moments before Friday’s hearing started.
“It is outrageous and shameful that Mr. Giuliani dares to suggest that he is the one being treated unfairly when his conduct has caused the plaintiffs real harm,” the judge told him.
“This takes real chutzpah,” she said.
Attorneys for the women have asked the judge to fine Giuliani $20,000 for each violation.
“The public should know that Mayor Rudy Giuliani never had the opportunity to defend himself on the facts in the defamation case,” he said in a statement with his spokesperson Ted Goodman.
“This is an important point that many Americans still don’t realize due to biased coverage and a campaign to silence Mayor Giuliani,” the statement added. “This contempt ruling is designed to prevent Mayor Giuliani from exercising his constitutional rights.”
Howell’s order comes just four days after a different judge in a different court delivered a significant blow to his claims in a property turnover case stemming from his defamation verdict.
Following a two-day hearing in a federal courtroom in Manhattan, Giuliani was held in contempt and hit with sanctions on Monday after a judge determined he willfully evaded discovery requests and ignored questions about his properties in a lengthy legal battle for control of his assets.
Giuliani showed a “blithe disregard” for requests for documents, including sending over the names of his doctors, financial firms and lawyers, and another for his phone numbers, email accounts and messaging apps, according to District Judge Lewis Liman.
Attorneys for the two women also asked the judge overseeing their initial defamation case to hold him in contempt for “brazenly violating” the court’s terms against repeating his defamatory statements.
A court order in the wake of his defamation verdict prohibits Giuliani “from publishing, causing others to publish, and/or assisting in others’ publication of … any statements that suggest that Plaintiffs, whether mentioned directly, indirectly, or by implication, engaged in wrong-doing in connection with the 2020 presidential election.”
He is also prohibited from making “other statements conveying the same defamatory meaning.”
Giuliani recently accused the women of “quadruple counting the ballots” and “passing hard drives that we maintain were used to fix” voting machines — echoing similar claims that landed him in a trial court for defamation in 2023.
His statements “repeat the exact same lies for which [he] has already been held liable, and which he agreed to be bound by court order to stop repeating,” attorney Michael Gottlieb wrote in a court filing on November 20.
Two days before his hearing, Giuliani’s attorneys asked if he could appear remotely from Florida, citing “a number of medical conditions” including “severe knee conditions” and “a lung condition that requires the use of an inhaler.”
His attorney wrote that it was “reasonable” to limit his travel “as one of the more outspoken critics of the current Iranian regime, at a time of heightened terrorism concerns.”
Judge Howell sought to call his bluff and asked him to submit “a sworn declaration, under penalty of perjury,” that he “has been unable to travel and has not traveled from his residence in Florida” within the past 30 days and does not intend to in the next 30 days.
Giuliani then wrote to the court to withdraw his request, saying that if an upcoming trial related to his property turnover case ends in time, he plans to attend Trump’s inauguration.
“I had hoped the Court would understand and accommodate my needs. However, it appears I was mistaken,” he wrote.
Following Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, Giuliani launched a spurious bid to reject election results in states Trump lost. In Georgia, he falsely accused Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of manipulating election results, which fueled a wave of harassment and abuse directed at the women.
They sued him for defamation in Washington, D.C., and in December 2023, a jury awarded them $148 million in damages.
He then filed for bankruptcy, but after a protracted legal battle, the case was dismissed earlier this year to let Giuliani and his many creditors battle for control of his assets in separate courtrooms overseeing the lawsuits against him.
