Government

Rudy Giuliani Flops Out Of Defamation Suit Against Biden For Calling Him A Russian Pawn

Great job, Mister Mayor, Sir!

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rudy giuliani

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

In October, Rudy Giuliani sued Joe Biden for defamation.

The complaint was a typically Rudy joint. He alleged that Biden had defamed him during a 2020 presidential debate in Tennessee by calling him a “Russian pawn.” He filed it in New Hampshire, the only state with a three-year statute of limitations. His putative lawyer was a guy from Staten Island who used a hotmail address calling himself “Biker451Lou” in his signature block. And in typically Rudy fashion, he appears to have simply slid off the barstool and forgotten all about it.

Specifically, the president promptly removed the case to federal court on diversity grounds, and then filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, because the only way Biden’s comments were “directed” at the state of New Hampshire was that the state’s residents could watch the debate like everyone else on Planet Earth. After which Rudy just … didn’t bother to answer.

Instead he filed a notice in February that he’d declared bankruptcy in a desperate attempt to fend off collection of the $148 million judgment in favor of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Atlanta poll workers he accused of stealing Georgia for Biden. (Well, he left that second part out). But, as Biden pointed out, Rudy “did not argue that the bankruptcy affected his obligation to respond to the motion by wholly staying the litigation (which it plainly does not).”

“Accordingly, Plaintiff has waived any objection to the Defendants’ motion to dismiss,” he added.

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If the plaintiff objected to this, he failed to mention it to the court, except for three hand-wavey paragraphs in a joint status report in May, where he suggested that the bankruptcy automatically stayed all civil proceedings. In June, Judge Paul Barbadoro put out a minute order telling Rudy that he was “mistaken” that the bankruptcy stayed proceedings filed by the debtor and ordering “America’s Mayor” to respond to the motion to dismiss within three weeks. And still, Giuliani did nothing, even after his bankruptcy case was dismissed for failure to comply with court orders and submit mandatory filings — the man is nothing if not consistent.

On Friday, Judge Baradoro had finally had enough.

“When personal jurisdiction is challenged, the plaintiff must carry the burden of showing that personal jurisdiction is both statutorily authorized and consistent with the constitutional requirements of due process,” he wrote, noting that the plaintiff had not objected to the motion to dismiss. “For the reasons set forth in the defendants’ memorandum, Giuliani has utterly failed to carry this burden.”

The onetime US Attorney for the Southern District of New York couldn’t even prosecute his own defamation case. Rudy stumbles out of New Hampshire worse off than when he started (unless he stiffed his lawyers, which would also be very on brand). He won’t even be there for leaf peeping season.

That’s okay — he’s got important business to handle back in New York.

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Giuliani v. Biden [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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