Giuliani Admits He Got Vote Fraud "Evidence" From "Social Media Posts" (But Can't Remember Where); Rudy Also Said Fact-Checking The Claims Would Make Him A "Terrible Lawyer" (Kraken Lawyer Powell Now Unwelcome At All Trump Properties)

Rudy Giuliani admitted during an August 2020 deposition (pdf) his claims of vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election came from social media posts, but he could not recall which platform, even though the former lawyer for Donald Trump spent several months touring the country repeating the false information.

"Those social media posts get all one to me," Giuliani said, meaning they all look alike. "I can't recall anything else that I laid eyes on."

Giuliani also said he did not waste his time trying to contact these sources or fact-check the claims because doing that would have made him a "terrible lawyer".

It's not my job in a fast-moving case to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that's given to me. Why wouldn't I believe him? I would have to have been a terrible lawyer… gee, let's go find out it's untrue. I didn't have the time to do that.

The Colorado Sun recently obtained the court documents this week. The deposition was held as part of a defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems.

The New York Times may have found the source of Giuliani's lies: comments made by right-wing podcast host Joe Oltmann, who alleged he had infiltrated an alleged "Antifa conference call", which allegedly  included a Dominion employee who identified himself as "Eric". Oltmann offered no evidence for any portion of his tall tale.

Giuliani repeated the lie in a November 2020 press conference: "One of the Smartmatic patent holders, Eric Coomer, I believe his name is, is on the web as being recorded in a conversation with Antifa members saying that he had the election rigged for Mr. Biden."

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Sidney Powell, another former Trump lawyer in serious legal trouble, is now unwelcome at all Trump properties. The Daily Beast reports that two lawyers currently working for Trump or in his close circle of adviser "say they want absolutely nothing to do with her and have cautioned others in MAGAland to do the same. One said they'd recently deleted her phone number."

Powell is facing a number of legal headaches. She and her nonprofit, Defending the Republic, are both named as defendants in a billion-dollar defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems. She's been sanctioned by a Michigan judge for filing a frivolous election suit in the state, faces calls for her disbarment in Texas, and her nonprofit is still waiting to find out its punishment for running afoul of Florida's rules for charity fundraising. Despite the mounting challenges, Powell was still posting new election conspiracy theories to her nonprofit's website as recently as Wednesday. . . .

Powell's conduct has somehow proven just a little too embarrassing for many [in MAGAland] —including, it appears, Donald Trump himself. . . .

[E]ver since [Trump] left office in January, certain advisers and longtime associates . . . have kept an informal shortlist of people who they should look out for . . . to intercept and possibly rebuff attempted outreach, visits, or phone calls from a handful of conservative figures who could bring the ex-president more undesired headaches.

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Donald Trump has filed a request for a preliminary injunction against Twitter in Florida federal court and is asking for his Twitter account to be reinstated. Trump claims members of Congress "coerced" Twitter into banning him. In reality, Twitter banned Trump for violating its extreme clear rules against inciting violence, after Trump incited the deadly January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and later released a video telling the domestic terrorists that he "loved" them.