- Rudy Giuliani on Monday recognized Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president.
- The statement comes hours after Dominion Voting Systems sued Giuliani for $ 1.3 billion.
- For months, Giuliani has been plotting conspiracy theories about the company’s role in the 2020 election.
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Rudy Giuliani acknowledged for the first time on Monday that Joe Biden won the 2020 US presidential election.
“As far as this election is concerned, it’s over,” Giuliani said in his radio program on WABC-AM: According to New York Times Reporter Azi Paybarah.
“Biden is the president, she is the vice president,” Giuliani added, referring to vice president Kamala Harris.
Giuliani’s statement comes hours after Dominion Voting Systems sued him for $ 1.3 billion and accused him of libel. The former mayor of New York has been haunting conspiracy theories for months, claiming that the voting company was engaged in widespread election fraud to free Biden the White House and ‘steal’ President Donald Trump in 2020.
After Dominion filed his lawsuit, Giuliani issued a statement saying the action would “enable me to fully and completely investigate their history, finances and practices.”
“The amount charged is, of course, intended to deter people with a faint heart,” the statement continued. “It’s another act of intimidation by the hate-filled left to erase and censor the exercise of freedom of speech, as well as the ability of advocates to vigorously defend their clients. As such, we will contrast they are investigating for violating these constitutional rights. ‘
Giuliani also took a combative stance during the radio program on Monday, say, “We’ll have a good fight” and “I’m fighting in the courtroom.”
Dominion’s lawsuit is the latest legal minefield for Giuliani, who is also under federal criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan to investigate whether he is violating laws against foreign lobbying. Earlier this month, a New York state senator referred Giuliani for denial because of his unfounded and far-fetched allegations of crime in the election.
The former mayor, who is also Trump’s personal defense attorney, suggested after the November election, among other things, that Dominion and another voice technology company, Smartmatic, teamed up to switch votes from Trump to Biden in the battlefield.
Giuliani and conspirators like GOP advocate Sidney Powell also embraced the unsubstantiated allegation and reinforced that Democrats and voting machines conspired with dead communist dictators to steal Trump’s election (they did not).
Several right-wing outlets have moved to make their coverage of these claims clearer after Dominion and Smartmatic threatened legal action. Last month, pro-Trump network Newsmax released a lengthy video in which he admitted that he had “no evidence” that any of the allegations it broadcast about the two companies were valid.
After Dominion filed his case against Giuliani this week, the company’s CEO John Poulos accused him of “propagating disinformation to deliberately mislead voters.”
He continued: “Because Giuliani and others have repeatedly repeated the false allegations about my company on a series of media platforms, some of our own family and friends are among the Americans who have been deceived.”
Business Insider’s Grace Dean and Jacob Shamsian reported that the case set out in detail how Giuliani Dominion was constantly accused of being involved in election fraud and of having lax security measures. The lawsuit, in addition to several people who believed his allegations, also cited a speech he gave at a Trump rally ahead of the Capitol’s deadly siege on Jan. 6 to illustrate the effect of his statements.
At the rally, Giuliani called for a ‘trial by a fight’ to stop Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory. Trump also urged his supporters to march to the Capitol to block the process, after which thousands of pro-Trump insurgents stormed the building and walked through several offices, stealing property and trying to hunt down lawmakers.
The attack resulted in five deaths and multiple injuries, and the Department of Justice charged more than 100 people in connection with the incident. Giuliani, who is campaigning for a presidential pardon from Trump but has not received one, said during the January 7 episode of his radio program that ‘violent rioters should be condemned’.