Giuliani concedes he made defamatory statements about Georgia election workers

CNN
 — 

Rudy Giuliani concedes he made defamatory statements about Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in an effort to resolve their lawsuit against him and to satisfy a judge who has considered sanctioning him.

The late-night Tuesday filing from Giuliani says he doesn’t contest Moss and Freeman’s accusations that he smeared them after the 2020 election. Yet the filing says he still wants to be able to argue that his statements about voter fraud in the 2020 election were protected speech. Notably, he also refuses to concede that his statements caused damages to Moss or Freeman.

CNN has reached out to a lawyer for Freeman and Moss.

The new filing doesn’t immediately resolve the case against Giuliani, which had taken a thorny turn for the former prosecutor and New York City mayor after a judge cautioned him earlier this month that he could lose the lawsuit or face severe sanctions for not gathering his own records in a thorough way and turning them over to Moss and Freeman’s team as they move through the case.

The federal judge, Beryl A. Howell of the DC District Court, must still look at Giuliani’s filings from Tuesday, which also try to provide explanations for why he didn’t search his records more thoroughly.

This story is breaking and will be updated.