M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
Trump's crony and longtime attorney Rudy Giuliani wasn't subtle about the racist overtones when he smeared the reputations of Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shay Moss, in the fallout of the 2020 presidential election, according to Joyce Vance.
Vance appeared on MSNBC's "The Last Word" with Ali Velshi to discuss the responsibility that the former New York City mayor and former federal prosecutor like her has when it comes to defamation.
In the aftermath of former President Donald Trump's loss to then President-Elect Joe Biden, Giuliani targeted the two election workers with baseless claims that they were involved in “surreptitious illegal activity” and "passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine" in a supposed scheme to trim votes from Trump in favor of giving Biden a boost.
On Jan. 2, Trump sounded Freeman's name 18 times in a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to sway Georgia officials to reconsider the state’s voting tally. He called the 62-year-old temp worker mother a “professional vote scammer,” a “hustler” and a “known political operative” who “stuffed the ballot boxes.”
"That was the entire pattern of the Trump presidency, were these appeals to racism," said Vance. "We're past dog whistling at his point."
She concluded that Giuliani wasn't hiding his hate speak with his commentary about the two women.
"When Giuliani compared what they were doing to people who were dealing drugs — there was no doubt in anyone's mind what he was saying about these women or what kind of punishment he was trying to call down upon them."
Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani for defamation after he publicly blamed them for stuffing ballots in Atlanta that they say led them being subject to an onslaught of threats and abuse.
The judge has already ruled in their favor on the merits in summary judgment, leaving the rest of the trial to determine the amount of damages.
So far, Giuliani has been unrepentant in court, continuing to insist he was proven correct in levying his accusations and attacking the election workers' attorneys.
