Rudy Giuliani says he obtained “evidence” of electoral fraud on Facebook
- Rudy Giuliani was sued by former Dominion employee Eric Coomer for promoting conspiracy theories for electoral fraud.
- Giuliani admitted under oath that he did not verify the claims about Coomer before naming him at a press conference.
- In the deposition, Giuliani said some of his evidence was based on Coomer’s Facebook posts.
Rudy Giuliani admitted under oath that his “evidence” of voter fraud in the 2020 election came in part from Facebook and that he had neither interviewed nor verified his sources, according to reports.
Donald Trump’s former personal attorney made the comments in an Aug. 14 deposition regarding a libel lawsuit brought by former Dominion Voting Systems employee Eric Coomer, MSNBC reported.
Coomer is suing the Trump campaign and others for promoting baseless conspiracy theories that he helped “rig” the election for Joe Biden.
In the deposition, Giuliani admitted that he obtained some of his information about Coomer’s alleged role in electoral fraud from his social media posts, but was unsure if it was Facebook or some other platform, MSNBC said.
“These social media posts are one for me,” Giuliani said.
When asked if he had seen any other evidence linking Coomer to voter fraud, he replied: “At the moment, I don’t remember anything else I have laid eyes on.”
The Coomer conspiracy theories were sparked by accusations by right-wing podcast host Joe Oltmann.
Oltmann claimed to have infiltrated an Antifa conference call in which someone who identified themselves as “Eric of Dominion” bragged about preventing Trump from winning the election, The New York Times reported. Oltmann offered no evidence for his claims.
The podcast host then tracked down Eric Coomer’s Facebook profile, on which he allegedly wrote anti-Trump posts.
Giuliani and other Trump allies picked up on Oltmann’s claims, repeating them in a now infamous press conference on November 19.
“One of the Smartmatic patent holders, Eric Coomer, I believe his name is, is on the web as being recorded in a conversation with members of ANFAA saying he rigged the election for Mr. Biden,” Giuliani said.
But according to court documents filed by Coomer’s attorneys, Giuliani spent “virtually no time” investigating the allegations.
The documents indicated that Giuliani had not spoken to Oltmann about the claims and had not contacted Coomer or Dominion about them.
Giuliani said he was too busy when asked why he repeated Oltmann’s accusations without verifying them.
“It’s not my job in a fast-moving case to go and investigate every piece of evidence given to me,” Giuliani said in the statement, reported by MSNBC.
“Why shouldn’t I believe it?” I should have been a really bad lawyer… damn it, let’s find out that’s wrong. I didn’t have time to do this.
After being named by Giuliani and attorney Sidney Powell at the November press conference, Coomer briefly had to go into hiding.
Trump and his allies have continued to promote baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
The Justice Department said it found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election, and dozens of lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results have failed.