Giuliani Admits to Spewing Lies About Georgia Election Workers

Rudy Giuliani has finally conceded to making “false” statements about two Georgia election workers, part of efforts to overturn the state’s presidential election results in 2020.

Giuliani, then acting as former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, for months accused election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of election fraud. The man once known as “America’s mayor” insisted that security footage of the pair proved that thousands of ballots in Georgia were mishandled or sabotaged.

His claims have been widely and repeatedly disproven by both state and federal investigators, but Trump and his allies have held up Giuliani’s statements as evidence the 2020 election was rigged. Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani for defamation and told the House January 6 investigative committee that they have faced threats and experienced damage to their livelihoods as a result of Trump and Giuliani’s actions.

But in a Tuesday night court filing in the defamation case, Giuliani at long last conceded that his claims were “false”—although he worded his admission in a way to meet the barest minimum level of accountability.

“Defendant Giuliani made the statements of and concerning Plaintiffs … and he does not dispute for the purposes of this litigation, that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory,” the filing said.

“Defendant Giuliani, for the purposes of this litigation only, does not contest that, to the extent the statements were statements of fact and other wise actionable, such actionable factual statements were false.”

Giuliani seems to be slipping in his stance on the 2020 election. In addition to this concession, he also met in June with special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump for mishandling classified documents and trying to overturn the election. The fact that the slavishly loyal Giuliani agreed to meet with Smith could be a sign he is about to—or has already—flipped on Trump. (Giuliani has denied flipping thus far.)

But Giuliani insisted in Tuesday’s filing that he only made the concession to move the lawsuit along and that he believes he still has legal defenses in the case that he intends to pursue. His adviser Ted Goodman said in a statement, “This is a legal issue, not a factual issue. Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”

Giuliani is already under fire on multiple fronts, including in this defamation case. The presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, threatened to sanction him over claims that he failed to preserve evidence related to the case.

Separately, Giuliani has been accused of promising to pay a woman a $1 million annual salary to be his aide but instead raping and abusing her for years. His accuser also alleges that Giuliani plotted to sell pardons to criminals. And earlier this month, a court panel called for Giuliani to be disbarred for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Hunter Biden will plead guilty today to tax evasion charges in a federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware. The right wing will go through its usual convulsions, but in the meantime, the intrepid Clouseaus of the American right have identified a new and even more feral member of “the Biden crime family”: their dog.

Here’s the cover of today’s New York Post:

Let’s give them half a style point for the cover language. It’s … funny. Sort of. But let’s also go over the backstory on why we know this isn’t.

First, the facts. Commander, Joe Biden’s 2-year-old German shepherd, has bitten several Secret Service agents since he took up residence at 1600 in December 2021. According to Politico: “Six incidents were significant bites that sometimes resulted in medical attention, two were aggressive incidents that did not result in a bite and another two were described as ‘playful’ or ‘friendly’ bites that did not require medical attention.”

That’s … troubling, we guess. And it is sort of weird that Commander is the second Biden German shepherd who has proven to be overly snappish: The first one, Major, bit enough people that he had to be shipped out of the White House to another residence.

So, as “news” is defined these days—sure, this is news. It involves the president of the United States.

But let’s ask: Why do we know this? We know it because of a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch. A FOIA request—about a dog! 

If you don’t know Judicial Watch, it’s the organization that, going back to the 1990s, FOIA’d every aspect of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s lives and filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. Just before the  2016 election, The New York Times reported that Judicial Watch had 20 suits pending against Hillary Clinton. “The vast majority” of the group’s suits, wrote the Times, had been dismissed. The group’s founder, Larry Klayman, once sued his mother.

And now Judicial Watch has gone to the dogs. Maybe Commander should be transferred to the more capacious and less stressful atmosphere of Camp David or someplace. But at least Biden has a dog. Donald Trump, it is well known, hates them. No doubt Judicial Watch and its ideological brethren will turn that into a plus.

Republicans have accused Joe Biden of corruption for months, despite having yet to produce a shred of evidence. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy just escalated the bogus investigation by putting impeachment on the table.

And his justification? Biden is basically like Richard Nixon.

McCarthy accused the Biden administration of using “government much like Richard Nixon used [it] by denying us to get the information that we need.”

The GOP says Biden and his son Hunter are guilty of influence peddling and accepting bribes—but again, there has been zero proof of this. Unable to come up with any evidence, Republicans also accuse the president of weaponizing federal agencies to cover up his family’s crimes.

“All I’m saying is … where’s the truth? You’ve got to get to the bottom of the truth,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday. “And the only way Congress can do that is go to impeachment inquiry that gives Republicans and Democrats the ability to get all the information.”

When asked if he was caving to the far-right wing of the GOP by entertaining talk of impeachment, McCarthy insisted, “I have nothing to do about who in the party [sic]. This is about America.”

Other Republicans have tried to impeach Biden before. Both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert introduced articles of impeachment over Biden’s handling of immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border—a sore point that led to Greene calling Boebert a “little bitch” on the House floor.

When Boebert introduced her articles in June, McCarthy called the move premature and urged his fellow Republicans to oppose it. He reportedly told lawmakers that impeachment ”strengthens Biden and weakens us.”

But it seems, now, the House majority leader has simply fallen in line with the rest of his party.

Things are not looking good for Team Ron DeSantis.

New reports indicate that the unemployment rate within the DeSantis campaign has skyrocketed by roughly 40 percent. Thirty-eight people, across different departments, have been let go, Politico reported Monday, as DeSantis tries to reboot an effort that has struggled desperately to make headway against his chief rival, former President Donald Trump, in the polls.

Those who’ve been sent their walking papers include the two senior-level advisers who left the campaign earlier this month, as well as roughly 10 other individuals cut from the event-planning team.

The DeSantis campaign had swelled to more than 90 staff members in its first two months—meaning these recent cuts amount to more than a third of the total head count.

The layoffs come as the campaign said it would be rebooting to a “leaner-meaner” operation to right its flailing takeoff.

DeSantis had originally sought to position himself as the most viable Republican alternative who could take on Donald Trump in 2024, even as the field of candidates kept growing.

But his numbers just haven’t matched the claim that he offered the GOP base a younger and more electable Trump. Additionally, the DeSantis team has struggled to meet its fundraising expectations. Though the campaign raised $20 million in the last quarter, $3 million of that was dedicated for the general election, and small-donor Republicans just aren’t contributing very much to his coffers. The campaign has also burned through nearly 40 percent of the amount it had previously raised, to the tune of about $1.5 million per week.

There’s not much to show for all that money: DeSantis is still nowhere close to catching up to Trump in the polls.

A Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found that nearly seven in 10 Republican voters say Trump is either “definitely” (45 percent) or “probably” (24 percent) the strongest Republican candidate against President Joe Biden. And nearly half of Republican voters say DeSantis would be a weaker candidate than Trump. 

Even Trump’s two indictments (which don’t include two more that are potentially on the way) aren’t enough to make DeSantis rise in the polls.

Meanwhile, the DeSantis campaign keeps creating controversies for itself. Just this past weekend, a top campaign staffer reshared a video with an image of DeSantis, a Nazi symbol interposed over the Florida flag, and soldiers on the march. Earlier this month, the campaign created another bizarre and rabidly homophobic video—then tried to plant it in a fan account to make it look like it came from the outside.

And last week, the Florida governor defended his state’s right to require middle schools to teach that slavery was of “personal benefit” to some enslaved people.

When he’s not attacking public schools, LGBTQ people, or abortion rights, the Florida governor spends his time trying to find some other way to wage his war on woke.  But none of this has paid off: not with donors, not in poll numbers. And now, his own campaign has finally been forced to reckon with it.

Abortion rights advocates in Ohio have officially secured enough signatures to put an amendment protecting abortion on the ballot in November.

Republicans are doing everything they can to prevent Ohioans from enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution, but reproductive rights advocates cleared one hurdle on Tuesday. They were required to submit 413,487 signatures from 44 counties to ensure the measure would be on the ballot.

They officially submitted 495,938 signatures from 55 counties, certifying that the measure will go up for a vote in November.

Abortion is currently legal in Ohio until about 22 weeks, although not for lack of GOP efforts. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, a trigger law went into effect in Ohio that banned abortion after six weeks, before people even know they are pregnant. That law has been temporarily blocked.

The constitutional amendment would allow people to decide for themselves about all reproductive health, including contraception, fertility treatments, continuing or terminating a pregnancy, and miscarriage treatment. The state could only restrict abortion access after a doctor determines the fetus is viable, or could survive outside the uterus. And even then, abortions can be performed if the patient’s health or life is at risk.

Ohio currently requires only a simple majority of votes to amend the constitution. But Republicans have decided to pull out all the stops in their attempt to block the abortion amendment. So first, Ohioans will vote in August on a measure that would raise the threshold for constitutional amendments to a 60 percent vote.

Although GOP lawmakers insist the move is not about abortion, Secretary of State Frank LaRose gave the game away in June, saying, “This is 100 percent about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”

But all their work may still fall short. A USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll released last week found that only 26 percent of Ohio voters support increasing the amount of votes needed to amend the constitution, while 57 percent oppose it.

Another poll, released Monday by the same organizations, found that 58 percent of Ohioans support the amendment to guarantee access to reproductive services, while just 32 percent oppose it. The support crosses party lines, with a third of Republicans backing the amendment, as well as 85 percent of independent women—a crucial demographic.

This is unsurprising for anyone who has actually been paying attention. Every time abortion rights are on the ballot, people vote to increase protections, not take them away. And despite Republicans’ best efforts, abortion rights keep winning.