Newsmax Lets Giuliani Bloviate About Losing Defamation Lawsuit

Newsmax didn’t have a lot to say about the defamation lawsuit two Georgia election workers filed against Rudy Giuliani — it published a wire article in August when a judge found him liable for defaming the women, and an article a few days later let Giuliani portray it as among the “ridiculous lawsuits” he faces. But when Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million to the women for defaming them, Newsmax finally had to devote some attention to the story involving the guy for whom it’s running a legal defense fund.

It ran a Dec. 15 wire article on the verdict, but it rewrote the original AP article to give greater prominence to Giuliani’s whining that the “absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding” and added a statement from him to Newsmax that “It bore no resemblance to a trial in a country with the rule of law. Newsmax also trotted out a Republican congressman to denounce the verdict later that day, as Michael Katz wrote up:

A jury’s verdict that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani must pay $148 million to two former Georgia election workers who claim he defamed them was “pathetic” and Newsmax on Friday.

The workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, sued Giuliani for defamation regarding the 2020 election that they said upended their lives with racist threats and harassment. Giuliani was helping former President Donald Trump contest his narrow loss to Joe Biden in Georgia in that election.

“It’s just ridiculous, the amount,” Burchett told “Eric Bolling The Balance.” “I read what he was accused of, but $148 million, that’s just pathetic. Everybody knows that. They’re just trying to ruin folks.

“This is a political game within our court system. It’s so political that our own Justice Department hasn’t even lifted a finger to look at Hunter Biden when the $30 million that have flowed through that family, their crime family, and probably not paid any taxes on it. I don’t know if Rudy Giuliani is guilty or not, but it’s not in the hundreds of millions of dollars guilty. I just find that offensive.”

Newsmax also had on Giuliani himself that day to rage about the verdict, as Eric Mack dutifully wrote up in a Dec. 16 atticle:

Vowing to appeal the $148 million defamation damages verdict delivered Friday, Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax the “absurd” amount shows the trial is bigger than the two claimants, as Biden lawyers are actually seeking to silence former President Donald Trump.

“It’s not a trial,” Giuliani told Friday night’s “Greg Kelly Reports,” just hours after the ruling. “I never had a trial.

“This is way beyond them. And my desire to move on with this case, it’s really to save the republic. Trials like this do not happen in a country that’s ruled by law. Trials like this happen in a country that’s ruled by a regime, which is what the Biden machine is, it’s a regime.

“And this is not the only desecration of justice in this regime. It’s one of many. It has to stop.”

Giuliani, Kelly and Mack all failed to mention that the reason Giuliani “never had a trial” is that Giuliani refused to take part in the trial process. He failed to take part in the discovery process despite repeated efforts and court orders to get him to, and he effectively conceded that he made defamatory statements about the women. Giuliani has no one but himself to blame for how things turned out, but Kelly and Mack won’t discuss that fact. Instead, they let him spout a conspiracy theory that the Bidens were behind all this:

“Also, the lawyers here were Biden lawyers. These women could not have afforded these lawyers. Is it a coincidence that the chief lawyer worked with Hunter Biden and represented the crooked Burisma?

“Who’s the guy who revealed that? Who? Me. Why do you think they’re coming after me? Because if it wasn’t for me, nobody would know about Joe Biden.”

The ties to President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are far too direct to be coincidental, according to Giuliani.

Neither Kelly nor Mack pushed back on those claims.

Mack got another article out of Giuliani’s appearance on Kelly’s show in which he actually touched on some of the relevant issues:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani set up the basis for his appeal of the $148 million defamation ruling against him Friday, saying the Democrat, anti-Trump judge forced excessive personal discovery of his finances and ruled against him for failing to comply fast enough with the unusual request.

“How can you not be so sad for the country?” Giuliani told Friday’s “Greg Kelly Reports” on Newsmax hours after the jury verdict ruled on the amount and not Giuliani’s guilt or innocence. “Here I am in the District of Columbia: The first time I came here I got goose bumps; I’m going to leave here thinking that this District of Columbia court is a fascist court.”

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2010, in August found Giuliani civilly liable for two Georgia election worker’s claims of “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and punitive damage” before the trial began because he did not turn over personal financial documents in a timely manner to the defense.

“I knew when she was assigned to the case, I knew we were dead,” Giuliani told host Greg Kelly. “I didn’t realize we were that dead.

Mack didn’t explain how that discovery request was supposedly “unusual,” nor did he question the fact that Giuliani apparently failed to comply with all discovery requests, not just that one. Instead, he let Giuliani whine in the third person that “”The jurors never saw a single defense from Giuliani” without explaining that the reason that happened is because Giuliani absolutely refused to provide one.

When Freeman and Moss brought a new action against him seeking a gag order to stop him from continuing to defame them, Giuliani whined about that in a Dec. 18 Newsmax TV appearance:

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax on Monday the new federal lawsuit seeking a permanent gag order against him is “un-American.”

Giuliani joined “Rob Schmitt Tonight” to talk about the second lawsuit brought against him by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, days after they won a $148 million defamation lawsuit against him.

“That sounds kind of un-American, doesn’t it? That’s prior restraint,” Giuliani said.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Monday, seeks to “permanently bar” Giuliani from “persisting in his defamatory campaign against the plaintiffs.”

Schmitt did not apparently ask why Giuliani could not simply shut up and not defame the women further.

When Giuliani filed for bankruptcy a few days later in a ploy to avoid having to pay the women, Newsmax ran a wire article, then invived him on TV to whine some more:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax on Thursday that he had to “protect myself” and other “normal creditors” in the wake of a $148 million defamation judgment against him, saying, “I’m destroyed.”

Giuliani appeared on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” hours after filing the petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

“I’m very hopeful the entire case is going to be reversed but I can’t be sure of that,” Giuliani told Schmitt.

Further, Giuliani took issue with Judge Beryl Howell’s ruling on Wednesday to dissolve the standard 30-day grace period for enforcement of judgment. The judge said her ruling was due to “several considerations” citing the “risk that Giuliani may attempt to conceal and dissipate [his] assets” during the 30-day period.

Schmitt apparently did not ask Giuliani about the possibility he might hide assets or ask any challenging questions about the defamation to which he admitted.

Meanwhile, Newsmax has given Giuliani a show on its streaming channel, Newsmax2, called “America’s Mayor Live,” where he rambles at will, so he’s got a little money coming in to help pay off that defamation judgment, not to mention his other legal issues.