Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told the press he would make a “major announcement” in New Hampshire on Wednesday, revealing a defamation lawsuit against President Joe Biden.
As a presidential candidate, Mr. Biden had accused Mr. Giuliani of operating on Russia information so as to get former President Donald Trump elected.
“They’re interfering with American sovereignty,” then-candidate Joe Biden said. “His buddy Rudy Giuliani, he’s being used as a Russian pawn. He’s being fed information that is Russian, that is not true. And then what happens? Nothing happens. And then you find out that everything is going on here about Russia is wanting to make sure that I do not get elected the next president of the United States because they know I know them, and they know me.”
Mr. Giuliani said the case had a “lot of room for expansion” because others helped President Biden advance his “lies.” He called the sitting president a “pathological liar” and claimed people had died because of his lied, because his actions had led the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“His lies cost me a good deal of my law practice. It cost me a good deal of my million-people audience,” he said,” referencing his podcast previously hosted on YouTube, which de-platformed him.
New Hampshire
Mr. Giuliani said on his podcast that he specifically filed the lawsuit in New Hampshire because of the state’s laws.
The statute of limitations in New York is one year, for example, but in New Hampshire there is a three-year statute of limitations, and neither party needs to reside in the state as long as the defamatory comment was published in the state, according to Mr. Giuliani’s counsel. The state also allows for damages for showing the victim “in a bad light,” not just defamation, which Mr. Giuliani is also suing for.
Veteran defense lawyer Louis Diamond is representing Mr. Giuliani in this case.
Mr. Diamond, who has represented high-profile mobsters and other notorious defendants, said later in the day on Mr. Giuliani’s podcast that “I'd rather be standing here today representing the right guy than the big guy.” The two had known each other since the early 1980s.
“He [Giuliani] obliterated crime in New York City, God bless him, as well as my bank account,” Mr. Diamond quipped.
He claimed he asked 22 different lawyers in New Hampshire who were “too afraid” of repercussions to take the case.
Other Legal Battles
Mr. Giuliani is facing legal problems on several fronts. His entire legal team in Georgia recently filing to withdraw from his case in Fulton County, where he is being charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.He has also been sanctioned in Georgia in a defamation case brought against him, where election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss sought damages after a video clip of them moving ballot boxes into suitcases and passing each other an unidentified item was widely spread. They have said in media interviews that they always use suitcases to move ballot boxes, and that the item passed between them was merely gum.
He is also being sued by Hunter Biden, son of the president, who alleges that Mr. Giuliani obtained and altered his computer data by means of hacking. The data in question is the information that was made public after Mr. Biden allegedly abandoned his laptop in a Delaware computer shop, but the lawsuit does not make reference to this. A Georgia judge found Mr. Giuliani liable for defamation for suggesting they were party to election fraud.
It instead alleges that Mr. Giuliani and his attorney Robert Costello made illegal efforts to access his computer.
Mr. Giuliani has said that his defamation lawsuit is not in retaliation to the suit from Mr. Biden.
Mr. Costello’s lawfirm has also recently sued Mr. Giuliani, demanding $1.4 million over unpaid legal fees.
Mr. Costello is a longtime associate of Mr. Giuliani’s, and served as a deputy when Mr. Giuliani was U.S. District Attorney in Manhattan.
According to the lawsuit, Mr. Giuliani has paid $214,000 in total, including $10,000 last month, but still owes $1.36 million.
