The two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation case against Rudy Giuliani will likely be called as witnesses in Donald Trump’s election fraud case, a law professor has said.
The prosecutors in Trump’s election fraud case signaled on December 5 that they intended to introduce evidence about election workers Ruby Freeman and Sheye Moss.
“Make no mistake. This huge verdict for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss is a sign of how things will go for Trump before a jury—when these two American heroes are likely to be prosecution witnesses for Jack Smith and the Department of Justice,” Ryan Goodman wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Goodman is a former special counsel at the Department of Defense and is now a New York University law professor.
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On December 5, prosecutors filing in a D.C. court claimed that Trump continued to target Freeman and Moss even after they were the subject of “vile and racist” threats from his supporters.
Trump listed Freeman as being among the “monsters” who had stolen the 2020 election and “doubled down” on his attacks after the pair testified before the January 6 committee, court filings state.
Freeman and Moss were falsely accused of using suitcases of ballots to add votes for President Joe Biden at an Atlanta voting center during the 2020 presidential election.
“Long after the charged conduct, the defendant continued to falsely attack two Georgia election workers, despite being on notice that his claims about them in 2020 were false and had subjected them to vile, racist, and violent threats and harassment,” Senior Assistant Special Counsel Molly Gaston wrote in a nine-page court filing that was filed on behalf of Smith on December 5.
In her submission, Gaston said Freeman and Moss gave “graphic testimony” to the January 6 committee “about the threats and harassment they endured after the defendant and his agents falsely accused them.”
“In apparent response, the defendant then doubled down and recommenced his attacks on the election workers in posts on Truth Social,” Gaston wrote. “He even zeroed in on one of the election workers, falsely writing that she was an election fraudster, a liar, and one of the ‘treacher[ous…]monsters’ who stole the country, and that she would be in legal trouble.”
On December 15, a D.C. jury ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss $148 million for defamation.
Giuliani was previously found to have falsely claimed the pair committed election fraud while counting 2020 ballots in Fulton County.
The inclusion of Freeman and Moss could bolster the Georgia section of Smith’s case against Trump, which includes evidence from seven states where Trump was alleged to have illegally interfered in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump was indicted on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot in the U.S. Capitol. It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has also pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases, denying any wrongdoing, and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt.
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