(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Lord but these self-styled warriors are sniveling cowards when they’re not posturing for the camera. Turns out it’s not just Sidney Powell who talked tough about welcoming the suit by Dominion Voting Systems while dodging the process server. America’s Mayor also did his best deadbeat dad act by enlisting his staff to keep the $1.3 billion defamation complaint from landing in his lap.
New York Daily News reports that it took Dominion an entire week of chasing the presidential lawyer turned YouTube ranter to get him to accept notice of their suit:
On Feb. 7, a pair of process servers and Giuliani got into an awkward standoff during a nasty winter storm. That morning, the doorman to the building waved to a Ford Explorer SUV parked down the street. Giuliani got in the passenger seat and closed the SUV door as a process server lunged forward with a bag full of documents.
“This is not the way it’s supposed to be done. You should have gone to my office,” Giuliani said, according to the account. The lawsuit was lodged between the SUV door.
The doorman got involved, jabbing his umbrella into the SUV door. The driver and doorman pulled the bag of legal documents, allowing Giuliani to close the SUV door. The process server left the bag in front of Giuliani’s building, which the doorman had locked yet again.
Maintenance staff tossed the notice of Dominion’s suit into the trash, but the process server excavated it from under the last remains of Rudy Giuliani’s dignity and managed to persuade the podcaster’s assistant to accept it on February 10.
Dominion’s attorney Thomas Clare confirms the account, saying that the former federal prosecutor did everything to throw a wrench in the suit he supposedly welcomed.
“After not responding to requests to waive service, Mr. Giuliani evaded in-person service of process for nearly a week. It took numerous attempts, at both his home and office, before we were able to successfully serve Mr. Giuliani on February 10,” he said. “Mr. Giuliani’s repeated false claims about Dominion have been immeasurably damaging; this service of process is one more step forward in our pursuit of justice.”
It’s a tactic familiar to Giuliani’s famous client, who spent weeks refusing to accept service at the White House or in New York by E. Jean Carroll in her defamation suit. And it’s a far cry from Giuliani’s bravado two weeks earlier when he claimed to be delighted with the impending legal action.
“Dominion’s defamation lawsuit for $1.3B will allow me to investigate their history, finances, and practices fully and completely,” he said in January 25 statement. “The amount being asked for is, quite obviously, intended to frighten people of faint heart.”
And nothing says “brave” like throwing your body behind a bulky door man.
“It is another act of intimidation by the hate-filled left-wing to wipe out and censor the exercise of free speech, as well as the ability of lawyers to defend their clients vigorously. As such, we will investigate a countersuit against them for violating these Constitutional rights,” he continued, without specifying exactly which Constitutional rights he meant. (Spoiler alert: No countersuit has been filed.)
On his own podcast Giuliani added, “We’ll have a nice fight, a real fight, and by fight, I don’t mean, don’t mean any words of violence. I fight in the courtroom, you know? That’s what I always mean when I talk about fight. We fight in the courtroom. We fight in the debate hall. I got a pretty good record in court. And I’m a damn good investigator.”
How did Giuliani’s last courtroom outing go?
Well, good luck with that one, Mister Mayor!
Rudy Giuliani tried dodging getting served with $1B Dominion Voting Systems suit: source [NY Daily News]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.