MSNBC host Chris Hayes celebrated a “down payment on actual accountability” on Wednesday after Rudy Giuliani lost a defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers.
“Today we finally got some semblance of accountability for one of the darkest chapters of Donald Trump’s attempted coup,” Hayes said.
The former Trump attorney and New York City mayor lost the civil lawsuit after failing to turn over discovery documents. He was ordered by a federal judge to pay nearly $133,000 in sanctions.
Fulton County election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss sued Giuliani in December 2021 after he spread false claims that they helped rig the 2020 election in Georgia. The mother and daughter say they were harassed, threatened and put in danger as a result, and are seeking an unspecified amount in damages.
Giuliani now faces a civil trial to determine any damages in the case.
Giuliani has conceded he made false claims about the women, whom he accused of ballot stuffing and “passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine” to infiltrate voting machines.
Hayes said the story was “past delusion.”
“What Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump and the rest of them, what they did to these women was one of the most disgusting aspects of this entire episode,” he added. “And now, he’s going to have to pay for it.”
He said the outcome was an important step toward real accountability for Trump and his allies.
“Trump and his confederates act like no one will ever hold them accountable. … The only thing that will change their behavior is to do the thing that they don’t think will happen: hold them accountable,” Hayes said.
“And while Giuliani losing a civil defamation case is not the same thing as facing years in prison in Georgia, or a potential federal indictment down the line, it is a kind of down payment on actual accountability,” he added.
Trump has been charged with 91 felonies across four indictments. In Georgia, where he’s accused of spearheading a racketeering conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in the state, he and Giuliani are both charged with 13 counts.
Watch the segment below on MSNBC.