Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Sunday offered a justification after he was found liable for defaming two former Georgia election workers, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman.

On his Sunday WABC radio program, Giuliani congratulated himself for a “brilliant legal move” because he recommended that then-President Donald Trump take his rigged election claims to state legislatures instead of the courts after the 2020 presidential vote.

“I went to Georgia, indicted, I went to Michigan, I went to Pennsylvania, I went to Arizona, and I went there, and I testified, and I brought my witnesses, and I said, among other things, if we lose, we’ll have a historical record, yet we’re going to prove this one day, Mr. President,” he recalled telling Trump. “I don’t even realize they’re going to try to put us in prison, arrest us, raid our apartments.”

  • Uglyhead@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    we were on the verge of electing a 30-year career criminal as the President of the United States, and if you do that, you’re going to rot from the head down.

    More projection. A 30-year career criminal is exactly what Trump is; as evidence has shown and proved.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      Sounds like he has zero remorse and is basically saying “My only crime is that I tried to stop an election stealing criminal”.

      The judge should double the ruling.

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        6 months ago

        If these people don’t keep doubling down, the maga base turns on them and they are completely screwed. They rely on the money from grifting those idiots and are no longer even remotely accepted by the adults in the room.

      • macrocephalic@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        He doesn’t have enough money to cover the initial ruling. The courts need to more aggressively retrieve the money because it already may as well be a trillion dollars he owes.

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    6 months ago

    “Did it for my country” is the new talking point. Trump used it yesterday.

    This is the rationalization when the narcissist is proven to have lied. “I was being selfless, making that sacrifice”

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      6 months ago

      That didn’t happen.

      And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.

      And if it was, that’s not a big deal.

      And if it is, that’s not my fault.

      And if it was, I didn’t mean it.

      And if I did, you deserved it.

      So that’s line four of the prayer? Moving along pretty well!

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        6 months ago

        I feel like it’s more like line 5. He’s admitting fault, just “didn’t mean” to harm the election process.

        I guess we’ll see “you don’t deserve democracy” some time over the next year and our election really will be a question of if we want to become a fascist state or not

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          6 months ago

          There are quite a few on the right already saying this. “We’re a republic, not a democracy!”

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              As long as the candidates are also House members, and they can be changed part of the way through their term, that’s just the parliamentary system, like the UK, Australia, NZ, etc have.

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      “For the country” is just him admitting to what they are trying to steal?

      Why did you rob that bank? For the money.

    • lobut
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      It’s because they’re the best option for the country. Therefore everything they do is justified.

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    People like Giuliani, Trump, Netanyahu, etc. habitually conflate their own self-interest with the interest of their country.

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    Admitting you committed a crime is not going to work out for you at trial…

    “So when you said you ‘did it for your country’, isn’t that an admission?”

    “. . .”

    • macrocephalic@lemmy.world
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      It’s already been to trial and he was found guilty of defaming the two election workers (he didn’t even put in a valid defence).

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        That wasn’t the CRIMINAL trial though, that is still coming.

        You don’t want to be admitting crimes ahead of potential jail time, especially when the bar raises from “preponderance of evidence” (civil trial) to “beyond reasonable doubt” (criminal trial).

  • Jessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    From the article:

    “I did it all for my country because I knew something my fellow countrymen didn’t know, and that is that we were on the verge of electing a 30-year career criminal as the President of the United States, and if you do that, you’re going to rot from the head down.”

    What a fucking idiot.

    • BringMeTheDiscoKing
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      Does the Trump country club know any other rhetorical tricks? Or just projection?

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        Fake News. I’ve gotta admit, Fake News was brilliant strategy, if sowing seeds of doubt into the election process was the goal.

        That is all they need. There could be multi-angle cameras that record their hate speech, and all they have to do to answer to it is say Fake News.

        Fake News! I never said that they should “fire up the ovens”. And if I did, it was not referring to any one specific group of people. And if I actually was referring to specific groups of people, I was just saying what you all think. And if you don’t think that, then you are probably an agent of either the FBI or IRS/ANTIFA.

        Edit to fix punctuation.

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    you did it for yourself and your friends you fucking crook, and nobody but the left half of the bell curve thinks otherwise for even one second.

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    “I am a proven traitor to America and attempted to oppress the will of its people because I am an American patriot and I love my country!”

    This is the type of dumbassery that all the backwoods Cletus’es eat up. Guaranteed to earn his master a few extra votes.

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    Do you think he believes it? Giuliani is an idiot but like, surely even the biggest moron can tell that the grift is just not working for him. I’d pipe down and try to minimize further financial damage, but maybe he’s a true believer.

    Idk. I’ve never had my soul seep down my face in a black goop so maybe I’m trying to apply rational thought processes that don’t exist within him anymore

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      I don’t think he believed it in the beginning, but I’m not convinced he has all his faculties anymore, so I think the line between grift and reality is getting blurrier every day for him.

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      I don’t think he’s capable of just shutting the fuck up. Like his daddy trump, it’s physically impossible for him to stop gibbering out bullshit.

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      At this point, I don’t think he even knows. Dude has completely lost it. Seems like he’s sun-downing half the time.

    • dnick@sh.itjust.works
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      Thing is, they don’t have to believe it to feel justified in saying it. Just like some cultures accept/encourage otherwise negative behavior like cheating or lying as long as it’s at the expense of the ‘enemy’ (unlike some cultures who would consider those acts dishonorable in themselves), Republicans are easily at that point in their culture where as long as it somehow owns (or just bothers or creates extra work for) liberals, and internally they can wink wink, nudge nudge each other and be on the inside of the joke, it’s perfectly fine to say one thing and think another.

      The problem is that they aren’t particularly good at it, so there isn’t really a solid line and, find themselves on both sides of the lines as far as being the insiders and also the mark, they don’t fully know how to function. Just watch the lower level people in interviews…they have no idea what the end game plan is, just some talking points, so when you ask them about two counter-intuitive assertions, they just fall back to pouting and anger. It’s really no difference for the top-level players like Trump and Guiliani. They just know that the lies work, and some people are letting them get away with them, and everyone else can’t keep up with the speed with which it’s spewing from their collective mouths, so they follow that prayer, the say it, they know they have to say it half convincingly, and in the process, end up believing in some of it, laughing about most of it, and generally confused about which half is which.

  • Ook the Librarian@lemmy.world
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    So that’s cool and all (well not really), but the time to raise a defense is at court. Of course, they don’t simply let you say things, you have to produce the discovery materials.

    What’s that? That would be incredibly damning? So just take the verdict and whine? Sounds about right.

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    That poor poor victim, you see he had to overthrow democracy and frame innocent people because he didn’t like the next president.