A federal choose dominated on Wednesday that Rudolph W. Giuliani was responsible for defaming two Georgia election employees by repeatedly declaring that that they had mishandled ballots whereas counting votes in Atlanta throughout the 2020 election.

The ruling by the choose, Beryl A. Howell in Federal District Court in Washington, implies that the defamation case towards Mr. Giuliani, a central determine in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to stay in energy after his election loss, can proceed to trial on the slender query of how a lot, if any, damages he must pay the plaintiffs within the case.

Judge Howell’s determination got here just a little greater than a month after Mr. Giuliani conceded in two stipulations in the case that he had made false statements when he accused the election employees, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, of manipulating ballots whereas working on the State Farm Arena for the Fulton County Board of Elections.

Mr. Giuliani’s authorized crew has sought to make clear that he was not admitting to wrongdoing, and that his stipulations have been solely meant to brief circuit the expensive course of of manufacturing paperwork and different data to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss in order that he might transfer towards dismissing the allegations outright.

Although the stipulations basically conceded that his statements about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss have been false, Mr. Giuliani has continued to argue that his assaults on them have been protected by the First Amendment.

But Judge Howell, complaining that Mr. Giuliani’s stipulations “hold more holes than Swiss cheese,” took the proactive step of declaring him responsible for “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and punitive damage claims.”

In an announcement, Mr. Giuliani’s political adviser, Ted Goodman, slammed the opinion as “a prime example of the weaponization of our justice system, where the process is the punishment.” He added that “this decision should be reversed, as Mayor Giuliani is wrongly accused of not preserving electronic evidence.”

Judge Howell’s determination to successfully skip the fact-finding stage of the defamation case and transfer straight to an evaluation of damages got here after a protracted battle by Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss to pressure Mr. Giuliani to show over proof they believed they deserved as a part of the invention course of.

In her ruling, Judge Howell accused Mr. Giuliani of paying solely “lip service” to his discovery obligations “by failing to take reasonable steps to preserve or produce” reams of related info. His repeated excuses and makes an attempt to color himself because the sufferer within the case, the choose went on, “thwarted” the 2 girls’s “procedural rights to obtain any meaningful discovery.”

“Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straightforward defamation case,” Judge Howell wrote.

The treatment for all of this, she added, was that Mr. Giuliani must pay almost $90,000 in authorized charges Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss had incurred and would endure a default judgment on the central situation of whether or not he had defamed the ladies.

The lawsuit filed by Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss in December 2021 was among the many first to be introduced by particular person election employees who discovered themselves targets of criticism and conspiracy theories promoted by right-wing politicians and media figures who claimed that Mr. Trump had gained the election. The two girls sued different defendants, together with the One America News Network and a few of its prime officers, however finally reached settlements with everybody besides Mr. Giuliani.

The marketing campaign of harassment towards Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss got here after Mr. Giuliani and others wrongly accused them of pulling 1000’s of fraudulent ballots from a suitcase of their vote-counting station and illegally feeding them by voting machines. The story of that marketing campaign was featured prominently in a racketeering indictment towards Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani and 17 others that was filed this month by the district lawyer in Fulton County, Ga.

The indictment accused Mr. Giuliani of falsely telling state officers in Georgia that Ms. Freeman had dedicated election crimes in an effort to influence them to “unlawfully change the outcome” of the race on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Other members of the prison enterprise, the indictment stated, “traveled from out of state to harass Ms. Freeman, intimidate her and solicit her to falsely confess to election crimes that she did not commit.”

Last yr, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss — who’re mom and daughter — appeared as witnesses at a public listening to of the House choose committee investigating Jan. 6 and associated what occurred after Mr. Giuliani amplified the false claims about them.

Although Fulton County and Georgia officers instantly debunked the accusations, Mr. Giuliani saved selling them, finally evaluating the ladies — who’re Black — to drug sellers and calling during a hearing with Georgia state legislators for his or her properties to be searched.

Mr. Trump invoked Ms. Freeman’s title 18 instances throughout a phone call with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, on Jan. 2, 2021. In the decision, Mr. Trump requested Mr. Raffensperger to help him “find” 11,800 votes — sufficient to swing the leads to Georgia from the winner, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“I’ve lost my name, and I’ve lost my reputation,” Ms. Freeman testified to the House panel, including as her voice rose with emotion, “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”

Mr. Giuliani has blamed his failure to provide paperwork to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss on his personal monetary woes. Facing an array of civil and prison instances, Mr. Giuliani has racked up about $3 million in authorized bills, an individual accustomed to the matter has stated.

He has sought a lifeline from Mr. Trump, however the former president has largely rebuffed requests to cowl Mr. Giuliani’s authorized payments. Mr. Trump’s political motion committee did pay $340,000 that Mr. Giuliani owed to an organization that was serving to him produce data in numerous instances, however he had nonetheless sought to keep away from turning over paperwork to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, prompting the choose’s ruling on Wednesday.

The defamation go well with by the ladies is just one of a number of authorized issues Mr. Giuliani faces.

In addition to the Georgia indictment, Mr. Giuliani is going through a defamation suit from Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused him of “a viral disinformation campaign” to unfold false claims that the corporate was a part of a posh plot to flip votes away from Mr. Trump throughout the 2020 election.

Last month, a authorized ethics committee in Washington said that Mr. Giuliani should be disbarred for his “unparalleled” makes an attempt to assist Mr. Trump overturn the election.

He was additionally included as an unnamed co-conspirator in a federal indictment filed towards Mr. Trump this month by the particular counsel, Jack Smith, accusing the previous president of plotting to illegally reverse the outcomes of the election.