$148.7 Million
The accountability season has finally begun
There is no way to return to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss what Rudy Giuliani stole from them. The only compensation available to civil juries is cash. And while cash itself can provide some restitution to victims, cash judgments can also serve as statements about what juries think about the harm that was inflicted.
Last Friday, a Washington jury made a very loud statement about what it thinks of the man once touted as America’s Mayor.
In awarding the two election workers $148.7 million—$75 million of which is for punitive damages—the jury delivered a body blow to Giuliani for the rancid innuendos and lies he spread about them in the service of promoting the bigger lie of a rigged election.
Giuliani’s lawyer implored the jury not to agree to the plaintiffs’ request for $43 million in compensation because it would be “like the death penalty” for him. The jury then executed Giuliani three times over.
And they made a statement about what can happen to proponents of the Big Lie when held to account in a forum where truth counts for something.
In so doing, they issued a clear warning to others who have been on the front lines of election denialism. It was a warning that Freeman echoed in her remarks to the press after the verdict:
Today is not the end of the road. We still have work to do. Rudy Giuliani was not the only one who spread lies about us, and others must be held accountable too.
Others must be held accountable too.
We all know who that means.
Last Friday’s verdict was a start.
It happened before it was too late. We are now deep into Act II of the three-act play that is the Trump post-presidency—the point at which I believed some measure of accountability would have to kick in if there was to be hope that we might save ourselves.
I’m referring here to my framework of three distinct stages of the post-insurrection world where the fate of American democracy will be determined. You can read about it here.
Act I was the reassertion of normalcy during the first two years of the Biden administration, when the sluggish judicial process began gearing up for prosecuting those who committed crimes against democracy.
Act III will be whatever follows the next election—either a resolution to the crisis of democracy or the start of a descent into autocracy.
But Act II—that’s what’s going to set up the denouement.
A year ago, I predicted:
Act II is where we experience the fallout from the 2022 [midterm election] results. It is where the "Republican civil war" blossoms or fades, where investigations do or do not layer legal accountability on top of political accountability for those who chose to undermine and overthrow the constitution, where Republicans with nominal power in the House succumb to their worst impulses and engage in a revenge attack on everyone who has dared to investigate them.
Well, we are experiencing the full force of that fallout. Republicans are at war with themselves in the House, unable to govern after failing to win a functioning majority last year. They are waging doomed attacks on Joe Biden, preparing to impeach him for imagined wrongdoing. And we are seeing the first stirring of legal accountability, which along with the political accountability that must come next November is essential if we are to pull through this moment.
Last week, the Giuliani jury said emphatically that powerful people cannot defame public servants and escape a binding judgment in a court of law.
The jury said that in the real world, there will be consequences.
As we look ahead to next year, there is the promise of more to come. There is the necessity of more to come.
For 2024 to end with a resounding rejection of Trumpism, the crimes of its leader need to be fully exposed and a verdict rendered on his deeds. The public needs to see the criminal justice system in action, and it has to work.
Democracy pushes back through accountability, and the country needs proof that democracy is worth saving.
The Giuliani verdict is a down payment on the promise of criminal and civil accountability for those whose threats to democracy gain currency in a web of lies.
Consider what awaits once December turns to January.
The year will begin with a forcible statement that Trump is and always has been a con man. Next month, there will be a judgment on penalties in the civil trial of the Trump Corporation, where the corporate death penalty is likely after a finding that the organization committed years of fraud. The judge hearing the case could liquidate Trump’s assets, seize ill-gotten profits, and prohibit him from doing business in New York state.
The judge has said Trump operated in a “fantasy world” of inflated property values for the purpose of securing loans. As with Giuliani, those lies evaporated in court.
Against this backdrop, E. Jean Carroll returns to court next month to collect more damages from Trump for repeating lies about her after a jury determined he had defamed her by calling her a liar for (accurately) claiming he sexually assaulted her.
Trump’s behavior here is identical to Giuliani’s, who continued to lie about his victims to the press outside the courthouse after the judgment against him was rendered. It’s a political strategy that demonstrates defiance, feeds the lies, and keeps the MAGA faithful enraged about a system that’s supposedly rigged against them. But outside that bubble, truth is reinforced every time the courts push back.
Democracy pushes back through accountability, and the country needs proof that democracy is worth saving.
Of course, the biggest events are scheduled to start later in the year. Four criminal trials against the former president are currently stacked up like planes on a taxiway awaiting word to see which will take off first.
The federal election interference trial—potentially the most politically consequential—is slated to begin March 4 but is being held up while Trump appeals a ruling from the trial judge that he does not have presidential immunity from prosecution. We should know soon how much the appeals process will delay the start of the trial. The government is moving aggressively to assure that a delay does not derail the proceedings until after the election.
Meanwhile, the Stormy Daniels hush money case is scheduled to begin in a New York courtroom on March 25. The Manhattan district attorney has said he would be flexible about that date if it conflicts with the federal trial in DC.
The Florida stolen documents case and the Atlanta RICO case loom later in the year, although they run the greatest risk of being delayed if they slide too close to the election. Certainly Trump’s attorneys are doing everything they can to delay all criminal proceedings past November.
A lot of things have to break their way for this to happen. Justice can be slow and creaky, but it can’t be delayed forever.
The accountability season has finally begun. It’s time.
I wish I had more confidence that the current SCOTUS would dismiss (preferably with derision) Trump’s effort to codify Richard Nixon’s notion that, “if the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”