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Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks during a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).
With the whistling intro to Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” playing in the background, Rudy Giuliani at 10:44 a.m. on Thursday posted a video to X, formerly Twitter, showing his tie-wearing dog, Vinny, inside the grounds of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Vinny loves hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, but he’s ready to spend a lot more time in Washington, D.C. over the course of the next four years in support of his favorite President—Donald J. Trump!” Giuliani wrote in text accompanying the video.
Such a post typically would not be noteworthy, but at the time “America’s mayor” put up this particular video, he was already nearly two hours late for the start of his bench trial in downtown New York City where a judge will decide whether Giuliani has to surrender his multimillion dollar Florida condominium and Yankees World Series rings to the Georgia election workers he defamed to the tune of $148 million.
While Giuliani himself does not appear in the video, it is easy to see how the post could be construed as trolling the presiding judge and the general legal proceedings that have left Giuliani near broke.
Attorneys, reporters, and other court watchers were left befuddled for more than two hours before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman adjourned the proceedings until 1 p.m., at which point he is expected to formally put something on the court docket, according to a report from the Inner City Press. Liman last week held Giuliani in contempt for repeatedly flouting court orders.
A spokesperson for Giuliani did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Associated Press about his apparent failure to appear.
Giuliani was scheduled to be the first witness in the trial which will determine if he has to turn over the Florida property and championship rings to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss to satisfy the $148 million judgment the mother-daughter duo were awarded after Giuliani spread baseless lies about them helping to rig the 2020 presidential election.
The 80-year-old former personal attorney to Donald Trump earlier this year claimed the Florida condo was his permanent residence, making it eligible for homestead protection under state law and thereby exempting the property, which is estimated to be worth about $3.5 million, from debt collection proceedings. Attorneys for the Georgia election workers have disputed that claim, alleging in court documents that Giuliani treated the Florida condo as a vacation home, not a permanent residence.
As for the three World Series rings, Giuliani claims they are not his to turnover because he gifted them to his son more than six years ago. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have argued that Giuliani’s own tax and bankruptcy filings included the rings as his property as recently as December 2023.
Giuliani’s no-show is the latest bizarre development between the former U.S. attorney and Liman, a Trump appointee, who has appeared increasingly frustrated with Giuliani’s flippant conduct in connection with the case. The turmoil culminated last week when Liman found Giuliani in contempt after weeks of threatening that he had to get his act together.
“Plaintiffs have moved for sanctions against defendant. The motion is granted. The Court found that the defendant’s objections were meritless. He was ordered to answer by December 20. Defendant violated the order” Liman reportedly said during the Jan. 6, contempt hearing. “The court takes judicial notice that the defendant was until recently a barred attorney, and has committed discovery violations in the past. He has lost on both procedural and substantive questions. It was not even close. He violated the court’s order.”
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. last week also found Giuliani in contempt and threatened him with possible jail time for continuing to spread the same “fabricated lies” about Moss and Freeman subverting Georgia’s presidential election.
