Rudy Giuliani misses court-mandated deadline to respond to contempt motion: report
Embattled Donald Trump ally Rudy Giuliani missed a deadline to reply to a motion arguing he should be held in contempt, according to a report.
"Mr. Giuliani ... was fully aware of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Civil Contempt, as well as the Court’s Order scheduling a hearing on the Motion for December 12, 2024," said a new filing to the court, brought by attorneys representing Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. "The Court should grant the Motion for Civil Contempt as conceded, should enter an order that Mr. Giuliani is in civil contempt, and the December 12, 2024 hearing should be narrowed to focus on the appropriate civil contempt sanction for Mr. Giuliani’s violation of the consent injunction."
P. Andrew Torrez, of the Law and Chaos podcast, wrote about the case in a lengthy thread on Bluesky.
"Yesterday, America's Mayor missed a court-mandated deadline to respond to a motion for contempt. Despite filing a (fraudulent) bankruptcy, Rudy has lots of lawyers. So WHY didn't he file anything?" wrote Torrez. "As it turns out, Rudy hired new counsel in the collection action brought by Atlanta pollworkers Ruby Freeman & Shaye Moss, to whom Giuliani owes $148MM for defaming them after the 2020 election."
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"While that guy represents Hizzoner in both the collection action & the DC Circuit appeal on the merits, there's one case where Giuliani is pro se. That is, he represents himself. It's a second defamation action brought by Freeman & Moss after they won the $148MM but Rudy still wouldn't shut up," he wrote.
Even as the court stripped Giuliani of his possessions and property to pay this off, Giuliani kept making the same false claims about Freeman and Moss, which ultimately led them to ask a judge to hold him in civil contempt.
"So, two weeks ago, they moved for contempt & sanctions 'calculated to ensure Giuliani's compliance' with the injunction," Torrez wrote. "The court set a deadline of Dec. 2 for Rudy to respond to that motion. Yesterday. Which he missed, because his lawyer, Staten Island Joe Cammarata, yammered on about this case in the collection action, he *doesn't actually represent Rudy* in this one."
Judge Beryl Howell warned Giuliani last month that if he did not respond to the motion, the court would treat it as "conceding" he is in civil contempt, opening him up to whatever sanctions Freeman and Moss argue are appropriate.
That matters, wrote Torrez, because contempt sanctions can allow the court to seize assets that would otherwise be exempt from the $148 million civil judgment. And because these are all civil proceedings, not criminal, Trump can't bail Giuliani out with a pardon, like he has said he wants to do for the Jan. 6 defendants.
The bottom line, Torrez concluded, is that "Rudy blew off his legal agreement not to keep defaming Atlanta pollworkers Ruby Freeman & Shaye Moss and now is going to pay the price."