{"id":100640,"date":"2025-01-16T12:02:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T20:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/16\/rudy-giuliani-embraces-contempt-as-a-lifestyle-and-it-somehow-manages-to-work-out-for-him\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T12:02:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T20:02:30","slug":"rudy-giuliani-embraces-contempt-as-a-lifestyle-and-it-somehow-manages-to-work-out-for-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/16\/rudy-giuliani-embraces-contempt-as-a-lifestyle-and-it-somehow-manages-to-work-out-for-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Rudy Giuliani Embraces Contempt As A Lifestyle, And It Somehow Manages To Work Out For Him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everything works out for ole Rudy.
\nThe post Rudy Giuliani Embraces Contempt As A Lifestyle, And It Somehow Manages To Work Out For Him appeared first on Above the Law.<\/p>\n

\"rudy<\/p>\n

(Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Once you get locked into a serious collection of contempt findings, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.<\/p>\n

That sentiment \u2014 borrowed from Hunter Thompson \u2014 developed into a mantra for former mayor Rudy Giuliani, and much like the famed author he seems to have gotten away with it, settling the case<\/a> after forcing the court and opposing parties to wait around for hours.<\/p>\n

Already held in contempt by two different courts \u2014 courtesy of SDNY Judge Lewis Liman<\/a> and DC Judge Beryl Howell<\/a> \u2014 Rudy decided to go all in this morning and completely skipped out on his in-person trial before Judge Liman.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

There were a lot of ways I thought this might go sideways. This one had not occurred to me.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Liz Dye (@lizdye.bsky.social)<\/a> 2025-01-16T15:44:36.834Z<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Giuliani was due in court for a limited trial to determine if he could declare his Florida condo as his primary residence to avoid having to forfeit it to satisfy the $148 million he owed Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Atlanta poll workers he defamed by accusing them of stealing the election from Donald Trump in Georgia. Freeman and Moss were subsequently targeted by MAGALand crazies and Rudy took off to fart on lawyers around the country<\/a> in a doomed effort to pretend the election didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Since losing the defamation action to Freeman and Moss, Rudy\u2019s been on quite a journey, claiming to be bankrupt and declaring takebacksies on bankruptcy (takebankrupt-sies?). Amidst his misadventures in bankruptcy court, he listed his primary residence as his New York residence, which he\u2019s since realized isn\u2019t as advantageous as claiming Florida as his home and taking advantage of their generous laws shielding a primary residence from creditors. Today, Judge Liman was set to preside over a limited bench trial to determine if Rudy could pull this switch-in-time-to-save-what\u2019s-mine.<\/p>\n

But Rudy just never showed up.<\/p>\n

In fact, while already nearly two hours late for the trial, Rudy publicly let it slip that he\u2019s hanging out at Mar-a-Lago instead of showing up to court:<\/p>\n

Around 1:30, Judge Liman announced that the trial would be postponed with Rudy still M-I-A \u2014 or M-A-L as the case may be \u2014 and set to reconvene on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Presumably with additional contempt hearings to follow in due course.<\/p>\n

But then everything seems to have turned around for Rudy:<\/p>\n

This account makes it seem<\/em> like this was all a big misunderstanding and Rudy was at all times locked in serious settlement conversations with Freeman and Moss and they just all forgot to tell Judge Liman to delay the trial while they talked. Though this reading runs afoul of the fact that plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers showed up on time this morning expecting to have a trial while Rudy took videos of his dog aiding and abetting contempt of court.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the joint letter from the parties to Judge Liman announcing the agreement indicates that it wasn\u2019t hammered out until after<\/em> Liman postponed the trial to next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

To be clear, this is an agreement in principle that the parties expect to reach \u201cfull satisfaction\u201d before the end of February. That said, the parties had a long standing court date this morning that didn\u2019t work out either so if you\u2019re a gambler there\u2019s even odds that we\u2019re going to be right back here on February 25.<\/p>\n

(Joint letter on next page\u2026)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Rudy Giuliani And His Lawyer Continue Their Courthouse Vaudeville Act<\/a>
Rudy Guiliani\u2019s Legal Strategy Is Performance Art<\/a>
Giuliani Bumstumbles Into Contempt And Sanctions In Freeman\/Moss Case<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/strong> 2<\/a>Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everything works out for ole Rudy. The post Rudy Giuliani Embraces Contempt As A Lifestyle, And It Somehow Manages To Work Out For Him appeared first on Above the Law. (Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images) Once you get locked into a serious collection of contempt findings, the tendency is to push it as far as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":100641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/rudy-giuliani-GettyImages-963758032-BCaAkH.jpeg?fit=1024%2C682&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}