Will the Georgia election workers see any of the $148 million award from Rudy Giuliani?

Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to pay nearly $150 million in damages to former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he defamed following the 2020 presidential election.

But as with all major jury awards, the question is whether Freeman and Moss will see any of that money.

Giuliani, the former New York mayor and onetime attorney to former President Donald Trump, has vowed to appeal the jury’s verdict. During the trial, he and his attorneys repeatedly said that he already doesn’t have funds to cover his various debts, but it’s unclear how much the former New York mayor actually has.

Attorneys for Freeman and Moss said in court they had tried to find out Giuliani’s net worth, but because he hadn’t responded to many of their subpoenas in the lawsuit, they couldn’t determine a figure.

A spokesman for Giuliani declined to comment Friday on his current financial state.

Attorney John Langford told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront” Friday evening that they plan to ensure that Moss and Freeman “see every bit of money that Mr. Giuliani has available to him, to pay and satisfy this judgment” and are “looking at every option (they) have to obtain the money that he owes Ruby and Shaye.”

They plan, Langford said, to move quickly toward getting a final judgment entered in order to go to other jurisdictions where Giuliani has assets.

Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel at the Department of Defense, told Burnett that it’s likely the election workers will collect only “a fraction” of the awarded amount. “There is no way they’ll collect (the total judgment), and I don’t think they’ll collect half the amount or a quarter of the amount, just a fraction. But I do think maybe they will collect millions. It depends on what his assets are,” he said.

Giuliani was ordered to pay $16,171,000 to Freeman for defamation, $16,998,000 to Moss for defamation, $20 million to each woman for emotional distress and $75 million total in punitive damages. When the verdict was read, even Judge Beryl Howell appeared taken aback by the figure.

Giuliani had already been fined more than $200,000 for some of Freeman and Moss’ attorneys’ fees, which he hasn’t paid. He also owed more than $1 million to defense attorneys who’ve helped him on other matters, prompting them to sue him this year, and hadn’t paid nearly $60,000 for years-old phone bills.

Yet at times he’s had help – including from Trump – to try to fundraise to offset some of his debts, and he was able to take a private plane to his arrest on criminal charges related to 2020 election interference in Georgia this summer.

Read the rest here.

Unlike Alex Jones, who is known to be extremely wealthy and has been going to great lengths to defy the courts and the families he defamed by obfuscating and hiding his assets; I suspect that Rudy probably really is broke or close to it. This is going to be a symbolic victory for justice and the rule of law, albeit an important one.

Rudy Giuliani is suspended from practicing law

Rudy Giuliani has been suspended with immediate effect from the practice of law in New York State for making false and misleading statements about the general election while representing then President Donald Trump. 

Read the court order here. 

Coming Soon... cigar smoke and back room deals?

With McCain's win in South Carolina and Romney's in Nevada the race for the GOP nomination continues to get more and more interesting. I am starting to think there is a chance... a small one but it's there... that we could witness something this summer not seen in a generation. A political convention where the presidential nominee is not clearly known before the convention meets. For decades now conventions have been little more than tightly scripted political infomercials for the predetermined candidates of each party.

However even if McCain wins in Florida on the 29th of Jan, twenty one(!) states will be voting a mere week after that with some of the biggest states among them. It is highly unlikely that any of the four credible Republican candidates (Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Huckabee) will bow out before super Tuesday. None of them will have the time or money to effectively campaign in more than a few of the states voting on February 5th. All of them have a chance to win at least one state and potentially more on that day. None have the level of support likely to give them a clear victory. What this means is that there is a small but growing possibility the Republican convention could convene with no candidate holding enough delegates to secure the nomination.

This would translate into the nightmare of any modern political party and the dream come true of political talking heads, reporters and junkies (qui moi?)... an open or brokered convention. My memory is not perfect but I think one might have to go all the way back to 1952 for the last time the GOP held a convention where the nominee was not preordained (Eisenhower stunned the party establishment who had been banking on Bob Taft). Back in the day delegates were often beholden to party bosses who traded (or just plain sold) votes in the famous smoke filled back rooms.

Modern day anti-smoking laws may put a damper on reviving that aspect of political tradition but if four (five if you count Ron Paul) candidates show up in Minneapolis-St. Paul with no one holding enough delegates to secure the nomination we could see some good old fashioned wheeling and dealing on the convention floor or in not so smoky back rooms. In fact this might be more fun to watch than baseball. Imagine what promises might be extracted by delegate managers or lesser candidates with only a couple of states worth of delegates in exchange for their votes. The lesser candidates who know they have little hope of getting the nomination could play king makers. Another possibility would be that if deals are not made quickly to select a nominee delegates might revolt and pick their own favorite man (or woman). They would not in theory be restricted to declared candidates. They could draft one of their choice. In fact such a convention could produce almost any result.

All of which is terrifying to modern political managers. This is doubly so in the Republican Party, which has a not entirely undeserved reputation for being neurotic about order and party discipline. The mere thought of this potentially once in a lifetime spectacle is making my political mouth water. Whatever happens this has already turned into the most interesting political season since 1980.

Stay tuned.

P.S. One year from today we will have a new president. I for one am more than ready for this change in administration.