Michael J. Gottlieb can by no means keep in mind the precise quantity — it’s $148,169,000— {that a} jury ordered Rudolph W. Giuliani to pay the Georgia election staff Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. However Ms. Freeman’s phrases after the December 2023 victory are indelible to him.
“Don’t waste your time being offended at those that did this to me and my daughter,” mentioned Ms. Freeman, 65, who together with her daughter Ms. Moss, 39, was falsely accused by Mr. Giuliani of aiding an imagined plot to steal the 2020 presidential election.
“We’re greater than conquerors.”
Lower than a decade in the past, the 2 ladies would have struggled to discover a lawyer. However Mr. Gottlieb, a associate on the agency Willkie Farr & Gallagher and a former affiliate counsel within the Obama White Home, represented them free of charge. Satisfied that viral lies threaten public discourse and democracy, he’s on the forefront of a small however rising cadre of legal professionals deploying defamation, one of many oldest areas of the legislation, as a weapon towards a tide of political disinformation.
Mr. Gottlieb has additionally represented the proprietor of the Washington pizzeria focused by “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorists in addition to the brother of Seth Wealthy, a younger Democratic Nationwide Committee employees member whose 2016 homicide ignited bogus theories implicating his household. Within the Giuliani case, Mr. Gottlieb, his legislation associate Meryl Governski and different members of his workforce labored with Shield Democracy, a nonpartisan group that pushes for legal guidelines and insurance policies to counter what it sees as authoritarian threats.
Earlier than the Trump period and the explosion of social media, although, such circumstances have been just about nonexistent.
“The brand new info panorama we’re in is a little bit bit just like the Wild West — a lawless area,” mentioned Ian Bassin, a co-founder of Shield Democracy. Legal professionals, he mentioned, have turned to defamation, which is legally outlined as any false info, both revealed, broadcast or spoken, that harms the popularity of an individual, enterprise or group. “It’s some of the efficient and solely methods for coping with these out-and-out falsehoods,” Mr. Bassin mentioned.
Up to now few years, greater than a dozen high-profile defamation circumstances have made their method via the courts. A majority have been introduced towards defendants on the suitable, however the suitable brings lawsuits too, usually towards media organizations.
In 2020 and 2021, The Washington Submit, CNN and NBC settled a defamation case introduced by Nick Sandmann, a Kentucky highschool pupil, who mentioned the retailers had wrongly described his encounter with a Native American elder as a racially tinged confrontation. Mr. Sandmann’s swimsuit towards different retailers, together with The New York Occasions, ended final week when the Supreme Courtroom declined to listen to the case.
Payouts have been notably massive for defamation circumstances towards the suitable. In January the lawyer Roberta Kaplan defeated former President Donald J. Trump in courtroom when a jury ordered him to pay $83 million for defaming her consumer, E. Jean Carroll, a author he sexually abused. Final yr legal professionals from the agency Susman Godfrey secured a $787.5 million settlement for Dominion Voting Methods from Fox Information, one of many largest ever in a defamation case, after Fox aired bogus theories falsely linking the corporate to election fraud. In late 2022 Sandy Hook households defamed by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones gained a complete of practically $1.5 billion from juries in Texas and Connecticut, although Mr. Jones has but to pay them something.
In different circumstances, the individuals harmed, like Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, can not afford legal professionals or battle to search out companies prepared to pursue defendants unable or proof against paying large damages, like Mr. Giuliani. Mr. Gottlieb has tried to fill that hole.
“The price of bringing a defamation swimsuit to trial will be huge, usually exceeding a quarter-million {dollars}’ price of bills, to say nothing of the worth of legal professional time,” mentioned Mark Bankston, a lawyer for a number of the Sandy Hook households defamed by Mr. Jones.
Mr. Gottlieb and his workforce confer with their circumstances as a “interest” in service to these whose lives and reputations have been broken by individuals with energy and enormous on-line followings. “I’ve all the time despised bullies that decide on defenseless or seemingly defenseless individuals,” Mr. Gottlieb, 47, mentioned in an interview in his Okay Road workplace in Washington. “There are such a lot of methods to make your political factors with out endangering particular person individuals’s lives.”
Mr. Gottlieb’s day job is full of the highly effective consumer listing extra typical of huge Washington legislation companies. He has represented Venezuela’s Citgo petroleum firm; helped the billionaire Steven A. Cohen beat a possible lifetime ban on managing consumer cash after accusations of insider buying and selling at Mr. Cohen’s former hedge fund; and labored with President Biden’s son Hunter on behalf of a Romanian actual property tycoon whose seven-year jail sentence for corruption was later vacated by a Romanian courtroom.
“I perceive there are undoubtedly individuals who would say, ‘Wait a minute — litigation for Citgo isn’t the identical because the litigation you’re doing for Ruby and Shaye,’” he mentioned. “I really feel lucky to have had a profession the place I’ve had all kinds of circumstances and have a follow that works totally different talent units and totally different elements of my mind.”
“Nonetheless individuals need to give it some thought and have a look at it’s kind of advantageous with me.”
The Submit-Fact World
Mr. Gottlieb, who was a clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens and served on an Obama administration anti-corruption activity power in Afghanistan, had his first foray into the post-truth world in 2016. That was when Mr. Jones and his Infowars outlet unfold the lie that Hillary Clinton and Democratic Get together operatives have been operating a toddler intercourse trafficking ring out of Comet Ping Pong, a Washington pizzeria owned by James Alefantis.
In December of that yr, a person who had been binging on Infowars “Pizzagate” episodes fired a rifle contained in the restaurant. Nobody was injured, however the gunman’s journey to Washington to avenge an imagined crime foreshadowed a collection of violent assaults by conspiracy theorists, together with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Mr. Jones insisted that the First Modification protected the lies he had broadcast, like most defendants in these circumstances. However threatened with a lawsuit, he made an on-air retraction and eliminated all Pizzagate content material from Infowars’ web site and social media channels. The complete settlement stays confidential.
Quickly after the Pizzagate case, Mr. Gottlieb represented Aaron Wealthy, whose brother Seth Wealthy, 27, labored for the Democratic Nationwide Committee and was gunned down in a botched theft in 2016. The case stays unsolved, and wild theories that Seth Wealthy was killed by Democrats unfold from on-line fever swamps to Fox Information. Aaron Wealthy and his dad and mom have been implicated within the plots, doxxed and harassed.
“If this had occurred to me or my brother or sister and any person was doing this to my dad and mom, I’d go ballistic,” Mr. Gottlieb mentioned. “And nobody was serving to them.”
In 2018 Mr. Gottlieb and Aaron Wealthy sued The Washington Occasions in addition to an web provocateur, Matt Sofa, and a businessman, Ed Butowsky, for spreading falsehoods that the 2 brothers had bought D.N.C. paperwork in a plot that resulted in Seth Wealthy’s homicide. Mr. Wealthy finally obtained a confidential settlement that included a retraction of the falsehoods unfold by each males and the newspaper, in addition to an apology to the Wealthy household. Mr. Wealthy’s dad and mom retained Susman Godfrey and sued Fox Information. They obtained a confidential money settlement, however no apology.
The Wealthy case had taken years. At one level Mr. Gottlieb was named in a sweeping defamation lawsuit filed by one of many defendants, which was later dropped.
The aftermath of the 2020 election introduced extra calls from potential purchasers. Mr. Gottlieb appealed for assist to Mr. Bassin, who had served with Mr. Gottlieb within the Obama White Home Counsel’s Workplace.
The Georgia Case
Lower than two months later, Mr. Gottlieb and his workforce have been writing the criticism in Ruby Freeman, et al., v. Rudolph Giuliani.
In his frenzied public scramble to make his case that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani, the previous president’s lawyer, had unfold the false story that Ms. Freeman and her daughter Ms. Moss had colluded to falsify outcomes whereas counting ballots in Georgia. He falsely claimed {that a} video exhibiting Ms. Freeman handing a small merchandise to her daughter — a ginger mint — was the 2 ladies exchanging USB thumb drives “as in the event that they’re vials of heroin and cocaine.”
Mr. Trump echoed the bogus allegations. In an notorious taped telephone name with Georgia election officers, Mr. Trump named Ms. Freeman repeatedly, calling her a “skilled vote scammer” and “hustler.”
Threats poured in to the 2 ladies. Individuals referred to as them traitors and, utilizing racial slurs, demanded they be lynched or shot. Others banged on Ms. Freeman’s entrance door and lurked outdoors her dwelling, forcing her into hiding. Ms. Moss had to surrender her job as an election employee and struggled to search out work.
Mr. Giuliani mentioned he would show his innocence. However he didn’t submit court-ordered paperwork, testify or name witnesses. Within the courtroom, he fiddled together with his telephone and rolled his eyes whereas the 2 ladies described their terror.
In December, a jury in federal courtroom in Washington ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss the $148 million. The case was placed on maintain after Mr. Giuliani declared chapter, and Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss are actually suing Mr. Giuliani once more, for his continued false statements about them.
Regulation for Fact, a part of Shield Democracy, has within the meantime filed defamation fits towards the makers of the election conspiracy idea movie “20,000 Mules”; James O’Keefe, the previous chief of Mission Veritas, a right-wing group identified for its sting operations; and Kari Lake, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, on behalf of individuals smeared by lies Ms. Lake advised in regards to the 2020 election.
Regardless of the exercise, legal professionals who see themselves as crusaders towards lies are usually not declaring victory. Their circumstances are excessive profile and goal key disinformation spreaders, however they acknowledge that they don’t put a dent in additional common widespread disinformation, like false statements about Covid vaccines.
“I believe these lawsuits could also be efficient in stemming a number of the worst viral disinformation,” mentioned Katie Fallow, a senior counsel on the Knight First Modification Institute at Columbia College. “However there could also be limits to how efficient these lawsuits will be when there are different incentives, notably political ones, to maintain spreading it.”
Kenneth P. Vogel contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.
