Rudolph Giuliani, a lawyer who worked for former United States president, Donald Trump, has admitted in court proceedings that he made false claims when he asserted that two election workers from Georgia had mishandled ballot in Atlanta while counting votes during the November 2020 election, New York Times reports.

Mr Giuliani’s admission was contained in court papers filed yesterday night as part of his updated response to a defamation lawsuit that the two workers he accused, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, filed against him before the Federal District Court in Washington in December 2021.

In a two-page declaration, the attorney who had previously refuted the claims that the workers sought in the lawsuit admitted that he did, in fact, make the remarks about Ms Freeman and Ms Moss that prompted the filing of the lawsuit and that they (his statements) “carried meaning that were defamatory per se.” Additionally, he acknowledged that the accusations were “actionable” and “false” and that he no longer questioned the “factual elements of liability” that the election workers were claiming in their lawsuit.

Despite admitting that his claims against the election workers were false, Mr Gioliani said his statements were protected by the first amendment and he expects not to face legal sanctions. He refused to acknowledge that his statements caused Mses Freeman and Moss, who are mother and daughter, any damage.

Admitting that his statements about the election workers are false was a tactic to move the case past the discovery phase – a period when lawyers were to establish, at a preliminary observation, that the workers’ claim before the court has enough merit to proceed to trial. Mr Giuliani said he saved both parties some time because the discovery phase was causing him “unnecessary expenses in litigating what he believes to be unnecessary disputes.”

His spokesperson, Ted Goodman, said the concession was necessary to move the case to the point where the attorney could rely on the first amendment to file for a dismissal.

The false statements made against Mses Freeman and Moss were part of the information Mr Trump had relied on to continue to dispute the results of the election he lost. He repeatedly claimed that the election was stolen and that the announced winner Joseph Biden did not fairly win.

Mr Guiliani had stressed the fabrication that election officials had forcibly fed thousands of counterfeit ballots, which they removed from a strange bag, into voting machines at the vote-counting site. Although Georgia officials alongside Fulton Country refuted the allegations, Mr Giuliani continued to spread the falsehood. He eventually broke all modicum of decency to compare the two Black women to drug peddlers and stated during a session with Georgia State legislators that their houses should be searched.

Later on January 2, 2021, Mr Trump relied on the false information to call Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to have a conversation in which Ms Freeman’s name was mentioned 18 times. During the call, Mr Trump was heard requesting Mr Raffensperger to assist him in “finding” 11,800 votes, which would be sufficient to turn the Georgia results against the winner, Mr Biden.

The actions of the former president threatened the election workers, with Ms Freeman, during a testimony to the House committee that investigated the January 6 insurrection, saying that she has lost her name and reputation. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?” she asked.

Lawyer to the plaintiffs, Michael J. Gottlieb, said that Mr Giuliani’s declaration already affirmed that his clients had “honourably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election in full compliance with the law, and the allegations of election fraud he and former President Trump made against them have been false since Day 1.”

“While certain issues, including damages, remain to be decided by the court, our clients are pleased with this major milestone in their fight for justice and look forward to presenting what remains of this case at trial,” he added.