'House of cards is coming down' for Trump as henchmen reveal election lies: columnist

Rudy Giuliani has admitted that he lied about two Georgia poll workers committing election fraud, and a columnist thinks that could send Donald Trump's Jan. 6 defense crashing to the ground.

The former New York City mayor conceded that his claims about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were "false" and "defamatory," which he admitted as part of a legal gambit in the lawsuit they filed against him.

And Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte argued the admission was fresh evidence that the former president committed crimes to remain in office despite his election loss.

"Giuliani's latest admission is another sign this house of cards is coming down," Marcotte wrote. "Not that Giuliani is giving up on the case entirely. Mostly, it seems his lawyers realize there's no way they can hide behind the 'he really believed it' defense. They are conceding the point in a last-ditch effort to plead that his lies were 'free speech' and not damaging.

"He's probably not going to get far with that argument, since both women have extensively documented how they've had to hide out from deranged Trump supporters, with Moss even testifying movingly about her suffering to Congress last year. But that Giuliani has given up pretending he was sincerely deluded strongly suggests that it's a pretense Trump himself will struggle to keep up."

Trump's former lawyer sat for hours of interviews with special counsel Jack Smith's team, and while Giuliani's lawyers insist he didn't flip against Trump, the new filing in the defamation case suggests he's giving up on claiming he actually believed the ex-president's fraud claims.

Federal prosecutors also have text messages from Mark Meadows showing the White House chief of staff clearly admitting those claims were false.

"Republicans are still clinging to the dumb-as-rocks talking point that Trump is innocent because he was just so gosh-darned convinced he won the election," Marcotte wrote.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis questioned whether Trump had criminal intent by refusing to call off the Capitol riot, and former vice president Mike Pence agreed – although both men are supposedly running against the former president.

"There is little doubt that these men are being deliberately dishonest, and not just because they know full well Trump was knowingly lying about the 2020 election," Marcotte wrote. "The reported leaks of what the investigation letter to Trump said make it quite clear that the likely charges aren't focused on what he said to the crowd on January 6, so much as the nearly two months he spent before that day pressuring government officials to fabricate votes for him or assist in his 'fake electors' scheme."