- Rudy Giuliani acknowledged on Monday that Joe Biden is the president and Kamala Harris is the vice president.
- The statement came hours after Dominion Voting Systems sued Giuliani for $ 1.3 billion.
- Giuliani spent months selling conspiracy theories about the company’s role in the 2020 elections.
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Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani acknowledged for the first time on Monday that Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. election.
“As far as this election is concerned, it’s over,” said Giuliani on his radio show on WABC-AM, according to New York Times reporter Azi Paybarah.
“Biden is the president, she is the vice president,” added Giuliani, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Giuliani’s statement came hours after Dominion Voting Systems sued him for $ 1.3 billion and accused him of defamation. The former mayor spent months selling false conspiracy theories, claiming that the voting company was involved in widespread electoral fraud to hand Biden over to the White House and “steal” the 2020 race from former President Donald Trump.
After Dominion filed the suit, Giuliani released a statement saying that the action “will allow me to investigate its history, finances and practices fully and completely”.
“The amount requested is obviously intended to scare people with a weak heart,” the statement continued. “It is another act of intimidation from the hate-filled left to eliminate and censor the exercise of freedom of expression, as well as the ability of lawyers to vigorously defend their clients. As such, we will investigate counter-action against them for violating these constitutional rights. . “
The Dominion lawsuit is the latest legal minefield for Giuliani, who is also under federal criminal investigation by the Manhattan Attorney General’s office on whether he violated foreign lobbying laws. Earlier this month, a New York state senator referred Giuliani for resignation for his unfounded and far-fetched allegations of electoral impropriety.
Among other things, the former New York mayor, who is also Trump’s self-defense lawyer, suggested after the November election that Dominion and its rival election technology company Smartmatic should conform to exchange votes from Trump to Biden in battle states. There is no evidence that this is true, and several right-wing vehicles have since had to withdraw their complaint after the two companies threatened legal action.
Giuliani and other conspiracy theorists, like Republican lawyer Sidney Powell, also embraced and amplified the baseless claim that Democrats and polling companies conspired with dead Communist dictators to steal Trump’s election (they didn’t).
After Dominion filed its suit against Giuliani this week, the company’s CEO, John Poulos, accused him of “actively propagating disinformation to purposely deceive voters. Because Giuliani and others repeatedly repeated the false claims about my company in a series of media platforms, some of our own family and friends are among the Americans who have been duped. “
Grace Dean and Jacob Shamsian of Business Insider reported that the lawsuit itself detailed how Giuliani continually accused Dominion of engaging in electoral fraud and negligent security measures. In addition to pointing out several people who believed his claims, the suit also referred to a speech he made at a Trump rally prior to the deadly Capitol siege on January 6, during which he called for a “trial by combat” to prevent Congress from ending the victory.