WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he will award former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, two days after his longtime political ally was seriously injured in a car crash.
The decision places the award on a man once lauded for leading New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and later sanctioned by courts and disbarred for amplifying false claims about the 2020 election. Giuliani was also criminally charged in two states; he has denied wrongdoing.
Trump in a statement on social media called Giuliani the “greatest Mayor in the history of New York City, and an equally great American Patriot.”
For much of the past two decades, Giuliani’s public life has been defined by a striking rise and fall. After leading New York through the aftermath of Sept. 11, he mounted a brief campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and became one of the most recognizable political figures in the country. But as Trump’s personal lawyer, he became a central figure in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Courts repeatedly rejected the fraud claims he advanced, and two former Georgia election workers won a $148 million defamation judgment against him.
The election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, said Giuliani’s efforts to promote Trump’s lies about the election being stolen led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.
Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington for repeatedly making false statements about the election, and he was criminally charged in Georgia and Arizona in connection with efforts to undo Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Giuliani, 81, was hospitalized after the Saturday night collision in New Hampshire. State police said he was a passenger in a rented Ford Bronco driven by his spokesperson, Ted Goodman, when the vehicle was struck from behind by a Honda HR-V. Giuliani suffered a fractured thoracic vertebra along with multiple lacerations, contusions and injuries to his left arm and leg, according to his security chief, Michael Ragusa. On Monday, Ragusa said Giuliani remained in the hospital but was expected to be released “soon.”
The Medal of Freedom, established in 1963, is awarded to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, or cultural or other significant public endeavors.