Courts

Rudy Giuiliani Asks Court To Hold Off On Collecting Judgments Against Him Because It Might Embarrass Donald Trump

No, he's not representing himself. Why do you ask?

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(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

For someone who was recently disbarred, Rudy Giuliani sure does spend a lot of time in court. Unfortunately for him, it’s mostly as a defendant, since he’s being sued for his antics in the last election by Dominion Voting Systems, its competitor Smartmatic, and Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Atlanta poll workers he defamed.

In 2023, his years-long refusal to cooperate with discovery in the Freeman/Moss suit resulted in a default judgment against him, followed by a $148 million jury verdict. America’s Mayor appealed to the DC Circuit, while simultaneously filing for bankruptcy in New York. It does not seem to have occurred to him that the automatic stay under Chapter 11 would halt his appeal, along with the plaintiffs’ collection efforts.

After spending the summer trying and failing to convince US Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane to un-stay the appeal, he flunked out of bankruptcy court with nothing to show for it but hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal and administrative fees.

Now he’s back before the DC Circuit, where he hopes to convince Judges Millet, Pillard, and Pan that Judge Beryl Howell, who presided over his trial, doesn’t know how to law good. His argument appears to be that there was no actual malice in his continued repetition of the lies about the plaintiffs, even after Georgia election officials told him he was wrong, because those officials — all of whom were Republicans, BTW — were “biased.”

Defendant had no obligation to accept the denials of the biased Georgia officials. At the time the officials denied election misconduct, Georgia had already certified the election results in favor of Biden. Georgia officials had an obvious motive to make statements that supported the prior institutional determination that election fraud had not occurred.

Meanwhile in the Southern District of New York, Giuliani is contorting himself like a circus clown to stop Freeman and Moss from seizing everything but his toenail clippings to satisfy their judgment.

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He wants to claim the homestead exception for his condo in Florida, despite the fact that he testified in the bankruptcy case that he spends 70-80 percent of his time in New York, his bank statements all list his New York address, and the majority of his podcasts are beamed out of his New York condo.

He tried to sell the New York condo, knocking down the price by $525,000, until the judge ordered him to knock it off and quit moving assets around.

His son, Andrew Giuliani, filed an intervenor motion claiming that his dad gifted him his four World Series rings in 2018, and Rudy borrowed back the one from 2000’s “Subway Series” against the New York Mets, so Freeman and Moss should not be able to seize any of them.

And Rudy says that many of his possessions are priceless, even irreplaceable, so the court should just put them under the control of the receiver who will release them once Rudy wins his appeal at the DC Circuit:

[S]ome of the property can be characterized as “collectibles.” This sub-category includes, for example, sports memorabilia, as well as a 1980 Mercedes automobile, previously owned by Lauren Bacall. Again, sports memorabilia and a classic car can be priced and sold, but restitution in money would not make Defendant truly whole. Again, Defendant asks the Court to couple a turnover/receivership order with an order that a receiver hold the property at issue, but not sell it until after the D.C. Circuit rules on Defendant’s expedited appeal.

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But Rudy’s lawyer Ken Caruso saved his best material for Donald Trump. Specifically, he wants to make sure that Freeman and Moss aren’t allowed to embarrass the former president before the 2024 election by dunning him for the legal work he stiffed Rudy on four years ago as he tried to overturn the 2020 election.

The Court, in its discretion, should postpone a turnover of this claim until November 6, 2024, the day after Election Day. Otherwise, Plaintiffs will or may use this assignment for an improper, political (or, at least, collateral) purpose, creating the confusing, and inaccurate, appearance that Defendant is now somehow suing candidate Trump, thereby generating an accompanying, and unnecessary, media frenzy. Plainly, the value of this claim will not depreciate between now and November 6, 2024.

It’s not clear whether this is a cognizable ground for Judge Lewis Liman to delay ruling on the motion. But it is very funny, particularly in light of Trump’s apparent admission that he viewed the fee as contingent. According to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s latest filing in the Trump election interference case:

[White House lawyer Eric Herschmann] repeatedly gave the defendant his honest assessment that [Giuliani] could not mount successful legal challenges to the election. For instance, when the defendant told that he was going to put [Giuliani] in charge of the Campaign’s legal efforts but pay him only if he succeeded, [Herschmann] told the defendant he would never have to pay [Giuliani] anything; in response, the defendant laughed and said, “we’ll see.”

Indeed, Rudy was not successful. But perhaps he’ll get a mulligan in a month. Put him in, Coach! He’s ready to play!*

Plus he really needs the money.

*Offer not available in actual courts of law.

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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