Top dollar
I hope the jury decides Giuliani should pay $44m.
Jurors have begun deliberating in the multi-million dollar defamation case against Rudy Giuliani.
Ex-poll worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss are suing Mr Giuliani after he falsely claimed they played a role in election fraud.
They are seeking damages of up to $43m (£34m).
How about $45m?
A judge has already found that Mr Giuliani defamed the two and it is now up to eight jurors to decide exactly how much he will have to pay. In closing arguments on Thursday, Joseph Sibley, Mr Giuliani’s lawyer, urged the jury to be measured as they consider the penalty.
Lawyers for Ms Freeman and Ms Moss are “asking you to reward a catastrophic amount of damages”, he argued. He said that, although the former mayor of New York did spread lies after the 2020 presidential election, he was not as responsible – or as malicious – as lawyers for the two have argued.
Oh come on. Look at the power imbalance – the everything imbalance. On the one hand two poll workers, and on the other hand the former Mayor of New York and current buddy of the ex-president. Please explain to all of us how he was not all that malicious when he told lies about these two obscure women to help out his filthy rich filthy corrupt filthy criminal buddy who is hell-bent on driving this country into a sewer.
I was listening to an interview with Ben Wittes of Lawfare today. He made two relevant points. Giuliani has repeated the defamation outside the Courthouse during the trial – literally on the Courthouse steps – after saying on the stand that he was sorry for defaming them. The Judge has noted this. The other point was that Courts are loath to apply penalties that are immeasurably far from a persons ability to pay. Wittes’ view was that they will not get $44M, but they won’t get chicken feed either. Apparently Giuliani owns NY property – apartments – that he has up for sale to pay his lawyers. One of them is reputed to be worth ~$8M. Who knows what other assets he has. In any event he deserves to be reduced to at least the level of wealth that most of us would consider to be ‘get by’ money. I bet Trump won’t come to his rescue.
The amount of punitive damages sought has not, so far, been sufficient to deter Giuliani from defaming the plaintiffs all over again, on the courthouse steps, while the trial has been ongoing. They haven’t asked for nearly enough. I think the jury should award in the three figures of millions, to be truly punitive.
All of the above could leave him picking through garbage bins in the Bronx or Central Park.
From the Guardian:
‘During cross-examination on Tuesday afternoon, Joseph Sibley, Giuliani’s lawyer, sought to undercut the idea that Moss was entitled to tens of millions of dollars in damages. He pressed her to explain why it would cost millions to repair her reputation.
“I personally cannot repair my reputation at the moment because your client is still lying on me and ruining my reputation further,” she said. “We need to make a statement. We need to ensure that the election workers that are still there don’t have to go through this. Hopefully by hitting someone in their pockets, for someone whose whole career has been about their pockets, we will send a message.”’
And thank you, Ophelia, for saying this:
‘Look at the power imbalance – the everything imbalance. On the one hand two poll workers, and on the other hand the former Mayor of New York and current buddy of the ex-president.’
That is precisely why the idea of some absolute principle of ‘free speech’, whereby all utterances and ideas compete against one another on equal terms in some abstract ‘marketplace’, is so utterly naive.
Well the alternative is the powerful saying whatever the fuck they want unless someone more powerful comes along to shut them up and the the little guys being stomped on by those above with zero recourse (if the more powerful aren’t on their side, a likely occurrence).
I think it’s more naïve to think that less free speech in any way favors the powerless.
Well said, BKiSA. I also think it is naive to assume that if there are limits on speech, that your speech (generic you, not any specific person intended) will be among what is permitted. Your speech will not be determined dangerous. I suspect in the event either the left or the right are able to control speech, most of the voices in this commentariat would be silenced.
I just saw that Giuliani has been ordered to pay $150M. It’s funny how here in Georgia, and probably most states and counties, poll workers are paid a pittance, and it’s considered to be largely volunteer work — work done by people who care about the voting process and want to help. People who guys like Giuliani and Trump treat as inconsequential. Good to see the justice system doling out consequences. :)
Wait, *more* than damages sought?
BKISA: I shall merely say that free speech (which by the way, I am generally in favour of, though not as some sort of absolute and unreal ideal before which we should constantly genuflect) is always & necessarily a negotiation between competing interests, and this needs to be recognised. As for ‘power’, power is far from being the possession of governments alone, particularly in this era of huge and massively powerful corporations and wholly cynical and powerful purveyors of conspiracy theories and destructive lies such as the Murdoch empire, which has never been interested in truth and which has been doing its best to destroy democracy which is the only political arrangement that can allow truth to an extent to flourish. The enemies of truth, such as Erdogan and Orban, have sought to destroy democracy, and have largely destroyed it in their countries – which is why Hungarian friends of mine now live outside Hungary.
I recommend reading the good Turkish novelist Ece Temelkuran’s account of what Erdogan has achieved: ‘How to Lose a Country: The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship’, which is certainly not relevant only to Turkey.
BKiSA @ 9 Evidently so, but we’ll have to see if this is realized, appeals and all that. Now if we can get Fulton County to step up to the plate and dole out some consequences for Trump attempting to disenfranchise Georgia voters, then maybe my faith in the justice system will be partially restored. Fingers crossed.
And you might like to listen to the lawyer Michael Popok discussing, on MeidasTouch, Elise Stefanik’s ‘legal’ endeavour to smear the DC Former Chief Judge Beryl Howell for saying in a speech (made on the occasion of her reception of an award) that facts matter, and that there is a very real threat that the USA will fall into authoritarianism because people in positions of power (whether political or not) and powerful institutions are spreading powerful lies and ‘disinformation’.
https://youtu.be/VPHOtVri1Ak?si=5gudqitrGfttebVe
That’s a nice democracy you have there… Pity if…
Also, if you have the time, read this fairly short piece, from the conservative but anti-Trump website, The Bulwark:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/use-constitution-protect-fourteenth-amendment?r=1orca&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
It is entitled: Use the Constitution to Protect the Constitution
There is also the website Talking Points Memo, which has just published an article headed ‘The MAGA Movement’s Links With The Global Far Right Were On Full Display At Trump’s Latest Party’.
Sorry I can’t find a way of providing a link here. Google is your friend.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-maga-movements-links-with-the-global-far-right-were-on-full-display-at-trumps-latest-party
Thank you again, Ophelia! I think I’m improving a bit, though…
Finally, the execrable Stephen Miller on the Giuliani verdict:
“Madness!” Miller wrote on X Friday night. “While conservatives believe in objectivity, fairness, impartiality, and the rule of law, the left believes in vengeance and in the punishment and degradation of political enemies.”
I wonder that Miller didn’t include ‘free speech’ in list of the wonderful things that ‘conservatives’ believe in & respect.
Ruby Freeman & Shaye Moss are not going to be able to live the rest of their lives without fear.
My issue is I don’t see how you build a hammer you can squash the Trumps of the world with that you can then later feel safe from when the Republicans get said hammer. If we had a metaphorical “good guy with a gun” apparatus in place it’d be a different story, but when is there ever a “good guy” with a gun?
As for Miller, *no one* seems to believe in “objectivity, fairness, impartiality, and the rule of law”.
There is an institution called the ‘law’ that is dealing with Trump at the present moment. I hope it is successful. Perhaps you don’t want it to be? Or do you agree with Stephen Miller? But instead of addressing the issue of Trump, why can you not address the question of organisations that tout themselves as news organisations but then release a torrent of lies and disinformation that are intended to support autocrats like Trump destroy democratic institutions, and that have certainly weakened them? Or the love affair that the Republicans & Trump are having with politicians like Putin, Orban & Erdogan? What do you want? Do you want a democracy or not? Should democracies not seek to protect the institutions that make them democracies? I frankly don’t know what you want – and that is not helped by what appears to be a despairing assertion that no-one (I am not sure why you put that in quotation marks), presumably of the right, left or middle or any other possible category, believes in those values. That is merely to throw your hands up and say nothing can be done. If that’s what you want to do, so be it. It is not a position that I can respect.
There is a an article on the website Raw Story, that I was able to gain access to earlier, but now cannot: It is entitled ‘The GOP has adopted a terrifying new role model’, and it is about the love-affair that the MAGA right, and Trump, are having with Viktor Orban, who has been invited over to the USA to give wildly applauded talks to his American acolytes. What do you want?
I see now, BKISM, that those are not quotation marks but asterisks around ‘no-one’, intended, I suppose, to add emphasis; so it seems that you are claiming that ‘everybody’ (including you?) has no faith whatsoever in the little list of virtuous things that Stephen Miller provides, and that, from his own record, does not believe in. Yours is a futile statement of despair, of weakness, and ultimately of a deep (and quite possibly libertarian, in the manner of Elon Musk) and unthinking cynicism. We all know that no political system is. or ever will be, perfect and is in part corrupt, but democracy, whatever its many faults, is far superior to the sort of wholly corrupt autocracies headed by Putin, Orban or Erdogan, and far superior to a libertarian free-for-all, too.
I should add that I am not calling for ‘less free speech’, I am pointing out that in the real world, as opposed to an ideal world, or a purely academic discussion (though even academic discussions involve power), any kind of speech emanates from some particular quarter, which will be more or less powerful and influential, and that this fact needs to be recognised; and that lies and disinformation, such as those peddled byTucker Carlson, have consequences in the real world and are destructive of democracy, which is the only form of government that allows truth a chance. And if we think democracy is a good thing, we should fight for it.
Stanley Fish discussing free speech on Youtube (title: Analyzing the Meaning of “Free Speech”:
https://youtu.be/klZq_2K8Yfg?si=aQIsabTD3JyGdWfs
It is worth listening to