Trump says Rudy Giuliani will receive top US civilian honor

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(Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Monday he would award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, two days after Giuliani was hospitalized following a car crash in New Hampshire.

The medal is considered the highest U.S. civilian honor and is traditionally presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the U.S., world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors.

Trump described Giuliani as “the greatest Mayor in the history of New York City, and an equally great American Patriot” in a Truth Social post on Monday announcing his decision to award him the medal. “Details as to time and place to follow,” he wrote.

Giuliani was mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001 and was once known as “America’s Mayor” for his response to the September 11, 2001, attacks. In recent years, he worked as an attorney supporting Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. 

In 2023, Giuliani conceded in court that he had made defamatory statements about a pair of Georgia election workers when he falsely accused them of trying to help steal the 2020 election for Democrat Joe Biden. 

A federal judge found Giuliani in civil contempt of court in January for not complying with requests from the workers for information about which of his assets could be used to pay off the defamation judgment.

A rental car carrying Giuliani was hit from behind at high speed on Saturday night, causing him to suffer a fractured vertebra as well as other cuts, according to a post by his spokesperson, Michael Ragusa, on social media. 

Ragusa said in the post that Giuliani was “in good spirits and recovering tremendously” after the accident. He added in a later post that the crash was “not a targeted attack.”

(Reporting by Julia Harte, editing by Ross Colvin, Rod Nickel)