Rudy Giuliani used an email address with the name “Helen” in some of his communications about his efforts to oppose former President Trump’s 2020 election loss. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and personal attorney to Trump, has discussed his use of the email address “[email protected]” in court appearances as part of a defamation lawsuit filed against him by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, two Georgia election workers. According to court documents made public on Thursday, the address is one of seven that is at the center of a fight over documents in the case.
“That was my main Gmail account since I had Gmail,” Giuliani said in a deposition on March 1, 2023. “And somehow others were created for specific purposes, but that would cover 95 percent of any email I had and probably every important one.”
Giuliani’s mother, who passed away in 2002, was named Helen. In an email to TPM, Giuliani’s attorney, Joe Sibley, pointed to this fact when asked why Giuliani was not using an email address with his own name.
“I don’t usually respond to inquiries on these cases and I can’t comment on much, but I can tell you that the email address you’re referring to is based on his mother’s name ‘Helen’ and that email address was the main email used by him to communicate with pretty much everyone before the DOJ seized his devices, so there is nothing unusual about him using that email to communicate with anyone at that time,” Sibley wrote.
The address also appeared in the lawsuit against former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that was filed by the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack. A message included in that case indicates Giuliani, as “rhelen0528,” was cc-ed on discussions about an executive order that some Trump allies believed could be used as a pretext to seize voting machines and even impose martial law following Trump’s election loss.
During that earlier suit, Meadows attempted to fight the committee’s subpoena seeking his testimony, personal communications, and other documents. The suit included an April 2022 memorandum in which the committee argued against Meadows’ efforts to resist the subpoena and positioned him as a “key player” in the election fight. To make their point, staffers and lawyers for the committee submitted an email that Phil Waldron sent to an address associated with Meadows. In that message, which cc-ed the Giuliani alias and was dated December 22, 2020, Waldron, an Army colonel who worked with Trump allies on efforts to overturn the election, indicated he had talked with Meadows at the White House about plans involving Executive Order 13848, which was a fixation for election dead enders who saw it as a path to martial law.
“RHelen0528” was not the only mysterious address cc-ed on Waldron’s message. Waldron also copied “[email protected],” an encrypted email service. The committee filing did not include any response from Giuliani to Waldron’s message. Waldron and Meadows did not respond to requests for comment on this story. “Lucy3413” also did not respond to a request for comment.
Attorneys for Freeman and Moss repeatedly questioned Giuliani in the deposition in the lawsuit about his ties to Waldron. At one point, Giuliani cited a report by “Walton,” before attorneys corrected him, to support his claim of fraud in the Georgia vote count.
Giuliani was a major figure in the efforts by Trump and his team to reverse his 2020 election loss. He was one of the public faces of the campaign and, in that capacity, extensively promoted baseless conspiracy theories about the vote count. Giuliani’s efforts to fight the result were divisive even within Trump’s inner circle.
Freeman and Moss’ suit is related to some of the wild claims made by Giuliani, who suggested surveillance footage showed the mother-daughter pair taking illegal ballots out of suitcases. Freeman and Moss, who were both Georgia election workers, have said they were subjected to a campaign of threats and harassment as a result of the false claims.
Officials in Georgia extensively reviewed the footage in question and found it showed normal ballot processing. Moreover, results in Georgia were checked through a detailed hand recount. And, of course, officials at every level of government have concluded there was no substantial fraud in Trump’s loss.
The revelation that Giuliani used the “rhelen” address shows that his efforts to fight the election result included being at least tangentially involved in discussions of the various plots centered on the executive order.
Giuliani, who did not respond to requests for comment, is currently involved in a fight with Freeman and Moss’ attorneys over turning over his communications including email records. In documents filed on Thursday, along with seeking to search Giuliani’s email addresses, the womens’ lawyers also requested messages associated with three different mobile phone numbers. TPM has confirmed that Giuliani, who has a well-known penchant for using multiple phone lines, used at least three other phone lines in addition to those cited by the attorneys.
Freeman and Moss’ attorneys, who did not respond to requests for comment, said they are seeking to search four of Giuliani’s email addresses associated with his businesses. They also requested access to three “personal accounts.” the “rhelen0528” address and another alias on an encrypted service, “Truthandjustice4u.”
This story was updated with a statement from Giuliani’s attorney.
