Man accused of intimidating Georgia witnesses appears at Rudy Giuliani defamation trial

Harrison Floyd, the leader of Black Voices for Trump who is accused of intimidating an Atlanta election worker suing Rudy Giuliani, showed up at the ex-mayor’s defamation damages trial in a Washington courtroom on Thursday.

Floyd is charged with three state felonies in Georgia tied to his role in harassing Ruby Freeman. He has pleaded not guilty.

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Floyd was seen sitting in the public section of the courtroom, which is just a few feet behind Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. He stayed for less than an hour and left before jurors were called in.

Freeman and Moss faced an onslaught of threats after Giuliani and others in his circle falsely claimed the mother-daughter duo committed election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, in which former President Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden. They are suing Giuliani for millions of dollars in damages for repeatedly pushing bogus claims about them. Giuliani was already found liable. This week’s trial is to determine how much, if anything, he will have to pay Freeman and Moss in damages.

Last month, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis claimed Floyd had “engaged in numerous intentional and flagrant violations” of his bond agreement, which bars him from communicating directly or indirectly with co-defendants or possible witnesses about the case.

(Dennis Byron/AP)

In her motion filed with the court, she asked the judge to revoke Floyd’s bond, accusing him of trying to intimidate witnesses. She included screenshots of some social media messages posted on Floyd’s account on X, formerly Twitter, that mentioned several Georgia election officials and others who are likely to be witnesses in the case. While the judge let Floyd remain free, the conditions of release were modified.

Calls to Willis’s office for comment were not returned.

Christopher Kachouroff, an attorney for Floyd, told the Washington Examiner his client was at the trial because “he asked if he could go to the trial and watch her testimony.”

“And I just told him, ‘Yeah, just don’t talk to her. Don’t do anything,'” Kachouroff added, saying his client was permitted to attend the public trial “as long as he didn’t communicate with her.”

Floyd’s appearance at Giuliani’s trial came soon after news broke that Giuliani would not testify in his own defense. Trump’s former legal strategist had been promising he would take the stand, speak the truth, and set the record straight, only to reverse course at the last minute.

Giuliani’s lawyers did not state why he decided against testifying, though Giuliani had been reprimanded multiple times this week by the judge for negative comments he made about the plaintiffs and their counsel outside the courtroom.

During closing arguments, Michael Gottlieb, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, asked jurors to award $24 million to each woman. He said both have experienced “what it’s like to become the targets of some of the most powerful men on the planet” and that they continue to know “full well those men are still out there, saying the same things and making the same calls to action.”

“Rudy Giuliani used his power to scapegoat Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss,” he added. “He didn’t see them as human beings.”

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Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Sibley IV attempted to soften his client’s image, reminding jurors he was once known for leadership skills and as “America’s mayor” following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He added that he’s “not asking for a hall pass for him” but that the punishment be “just.”

The Washington Examiner’s Kaelan Deese contributed to this report.