Rudy Giuliani has asked a federal judge in New York not to release court documents detailing why his two attorneys abruptly quit while representing him in the receivership case involving the $148 million he owes the two Georgia election workers he defamed.
Giuliani has been involved in an ongoing and often contentious litigation with Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, the defamed election workers, to collect on the judgment.
The filing, from Giuliani’s new attorney, Joseph M. Cammarata, came in response to U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman ordering Giuliani and the plaintiffs in the case to inform the court whether they objected to unsealing declarations from Giuliani’s former lead attorney, Kenneth Caruso, and former co-counsel, David Labkowski, regarding why they chose to withdraw from representing the former New York City mayor—a move they made without informing their client.
Caruso and Labkowski should never have filed their withdrawal motions with the court, Giuliani argued, but once he, his former attorneys, and Cammarata signed a consent order granting substitution of attorney, the motions became moot.
One day after Caruso and Labkowski sought to withdraw from the case, Giuliani filed the consent order, but Liman did not sign it immediately.
“Instead of the Court signing off on the substitution of counsel form filed on November 15, 2024, on November 26, 2024, the Court instead granted Defendant’s prior counsel Kenneth A.
Caruso, Esq. and David Labkowski application to be relieved as counsel,” Cammarata said in a Saturday reply.
“Once the Court was satisfied that I, as new counsel, would be ready for trial on January 16, 2025, the Court could and respectfully should have signed the Consent Order Granting Substitution of Attorney rather than deciding the motion.”
Giuliani also claimed that unsealing his former attorneys’ withdrawal motions would reveal information that could jeopardize his case, saying “it would serve no purpose and no benefit” to the plaintiffs or the court.
“Any reasons and basis for unsealing the sealed documents would likely reveal attorney-client privileged communications between Defendant’s prior counsel and Defendant and would serve no purpose other than causing harm to the Defendant,” according to the motion.
“The only reason Defendant’s prior counsel would have sought to withdraw was a disagreement with the defendant. Plaintiffs and the public, who would obviously have access to the documents that Defendant’s prior counsel sought to keep private, confidential, and sealed from the rest of the world, would be able to see the specifics of Defendant’s disagreements with his prior counsel.”
Cammarata further stated that none of the parties had requested the unsealing of the withdrawal motions prior to Liman’s Friday order.
Liman cited legal precedent in his Friday order, stating that “each passing day where access to court-filed documents is improperly denied may constitute a separate and cognizable infringement of the First Amendment.'”
Giuliani has had a strained relationship with Liman; he even interrupted the judge during an in-person hearing last month and exclaimed, “You are against me!” to Liman.
Following the hearing, Giuliani spoke with reporters outside the courthouse, accusing Liman of being an “activist Democrat,” Politico reported. President Trump appointed Liman to the court in 2019.
“Have you figured out which side he is on? Are you too blind to see which side he’s on?” Giuliani reportedly asked. “I have been a lawyer for 55 years. I can figure out which side he is on.”
Giuliani reportedly continued the Liman rant as he boarded the elevator.
“He doesn’t care about the truth. He just gives a damn about being popular,” he says, adding, “This is lawfare with capital letters.”
