Freeman and Moss have been election employees in Georgia focused by Trump and Giuliani as the lads publicly shared conspiracy theories about election fraud in Georgia.
Pointing to safety footage of Moss and Freeman innocently working at a voting heart, they publicly accused Moss of giving her mom “USB drives” containing votes for now-President Joe Biden.
Giuliani as soon as mentioned she handed them off to her mom like vials of cocaine.
The “USB” was, in actual fact, a ginger mint.
After the committee printed transcripts from its interviews with Freeman and Moss, on Jan. 3 Trump took to his social media platform TruthSocial and picked up proper about the place he left off with the ladies.
“Wow! Has anybody seen the Ruby Freeman ‘contradictions’ of her sworn testimony? Now that is ‘BIG STUFF.’ Look what was captured by Cobb County police physique cameras on January 4, 2021….” Trump wrote.
He adopted it up with two extra posts sputtering related lies about “suitcases” filled with ballots. Investigators have decided these “suitcases” have been normal difficulty containers used to switch ballots.
This conspiracy concept and others prefer it have been debunked at size. It might all appear merely to be a little bit of horrible deja vu, however there’s a minimum of one essential distinction this time round. Because of the choose committee’s 18-month investigation of Jan. 6, there’s a mountain of proof that includes corroborated witness testimony from among the many highest ranks of the Trump administration affirming that Trump was instructed, repeatedly and instantly, that his accusations of election fraud have been patently false.
Trump’s habits is unsurprising, however it underlines precisely why the testimony Freeman and Moss gave to the committee is such a significant a part of the report of Jan. 6. It affirms, amongst many different issues, that Trump is a hazard not simply to the rule of legislation however to on a regular basis individuals when he weaponizes disinformation in opposition to them from his platform, president or not.
Trump is working for the White Home in 2024. Although his reputation could also be deemed waning by many pundits and onlookers immediately, his vitriol doesn’t want their confidence or a nationwide viewers to unleash chaos.
Freeman was compelled to maneuver out of her home due to the barrage of dying threats she acquired after Trump named her whereas spewing the Large Lie in 2020.
Trump mentioned her title 18 instances when discussing so-called election “fraud” with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Even months after the election, she was nonetheless coping with the fallout.
“Quantity 45 and his crew destroyed our lives. So I gained’t name Quantity 45 by his title, He and his allies took my title, so I gained’t utter his,” she mentioned when she met with the committee in Might.
Freeman, who’s in her sixties, labored as an “opener” through the tabulating of votes at State Farm Area in Georgia. This meant she would open the ballots after that they had been reduce to verify the knowledge added up and matched, she mentioned. It was early December when she discovered that she was being accused of stealing ballots for now-President Joe Biden. With reporters calling across the clock, hate emails, and threats deluging her cell telephone, she went straight to the state’s election division to tell them of this new, ominous disruption. She additionally went to the police. For a grueling week, all whereas being peppered with dying threats, she sat by way of interviews with the FBI, the Fulton County supervisor’s workplace, and the county legal professional’s workplace and different officers. She needed to inform them of her Moss’ each transfer whereas they labored on the enviornment.
It was “rather a lot,” she testified, although assembly with legislation enforcement officers wasn’t “intimidating”—she labored for a police division for 12 years the place she maintained a 911 database.
Surveillance video from Georgia’s State Farm Area was circulated by Trump in addition to Giuliani as “proof” that Freeman and Moss “stole” ballots. Federal and state investigators reviewed the footage totally. They have been in a position to debunk the claims that Moss and Freeman had moved suitcases filled with unlawful ballots.
“I assumed it was horrible,” Freeman mentioned when committee counsel requested what she thought the very first time she noticed the surveillance footage that Giuliani had handed off as proof of a supposed crime.
“I assumed it was—I assumed it was horrible. It was degrading. It was all a lie. They felt that—they made it to be what they wished it to be, not what it really was,” she mentioned.
When Trump delivered his speech on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, he talked about the “suitcases” once more.
Freeman instructed the committee that she hadn’t listened to the speech that day.
She hadn’t been conscious he introduced up the conspiracy concept but once more that had “turned my complete life round,” she mentioned.
“I used to be afraid to exit. I used to be afraid for individuals to name my title. Like I mentioned, I used to be afraid to order meals and any person would ask, ‘what’s your title?’ That was—I used to be, like, simply standing there taking a look at them, you understand after which I must provide you with some title. Or it was on the pink gentle and any person was staring, you understand, it was like, I didn’t know why they have been staring, why—you understand. So I used to be at all times fearful, I used to be at all times afraid.”
The FBI knowledgeable Freeman the week of Jan. sixth that she wanted to depart her residence.
They feared individuals may break into her home to hurt her or worse. Letters, telephone calls, textual content messages, and in-person visits to her residence had reached a fever pitch.
She recalled the threatening messages:
“’We all know the place you reside and we’re coming to get you, nigger,’ or ‘You’re going to jail and also you’re gonna rot in hell,’ or you understand, ‘Your voicemail says about your religion and also you’re a Christian. Do you suppose Biden is gonna assist you now that you’ve given him all these ballots? Do you suppose he’s gonna come that will help you out? He’s not. He don’t care something about you.’ ‘You and your daughters are—,’ they’d simply use a variety of curse phrases. Yeah.”
Brokers instructed her it will be finest if she left her residence of 21 years till the inauguration.
She left for 2 months.
She felt “homeless,” she mentioned.
She expressed feeling “horrible” that her associates or neighbors have been not directly roped into the harmful circus Trump created. Folks appeared exterior of her residence to scream at her by way of bullhorns, she recalled. Neighbors and associates watched out for her. Some disrupted their very own lives to shelter her or confront the conspiracy theorists who materialized on her doorstep.
In a chilling little bit of testimony, Freeman recalled an expertise on Jan. 4 after an odd lady confirmed up at her home saying she had come from Chicago as a result of she wished to “assist” her.
A neighbor addressed the girl whereas Freeman hid inside and known as the police.
“When the police got here, she stayed there for a very long time.
And I used to be telling her about it. And I mentioned, properly, I’ve a contact particular person with the FBI. And he or she known as the FBI, they usually talked and requested if it was okay for this girl to fulfill me on the police division to speak about how she might assist me. And there was a police report made. And he or she—we went to the police division.
So I came upon, the time that it took her to depart my home and get to the police division, that’s when she had been to my mother’s home they usually tried to power their method into that home, which I didn’t know at that second, however I came upon later.”
Freeman instructed the committee within the aftermath of Jan. 6 she needed to shut down her social media pages for her enterprise. She put in safety cameras in all places, together with lights and alarms. She went from being an individual who solely slept at the hours of darkness, ”no gentle, no tv,” to discovering herself regularly unable to sleep with out the lights on.
She misplaced her style for being an election employee.
“I do not need individuals to be discouraged. I need this to show them, even [moreso] is exit and vote. I need individuals to know that they shouldn’t be afraid. You must go and vote. Your voice counts. Your voice must be heard. It’s worthwhile to be that quantity. It’s worthwhile to be in that variety of voters for all—wherever you reside, yeah. Go and vote. And likewise to work—work the elections to verify you are able to do the job. You are able to do it. Don’t let what occurred to me cease anybody from doing that.”
She added: “However I wouldn’t do it as a result of it did occur to me and I want to only keep out of the image completely.”
“It doesn’t really feel good in any respect. it hurts. It hurts. It hurts when, you understand, you’ve been lied on, you’ve been threatened, dying threats. You already know, threats got here from individuals in—that was arrested for the Capitol offense, and I used to be on … that I used to be on a dying listing, that hurts. That hurts to know your title was talked about by the president of the US a number of instances. “
In her testimony to the select committee, Moss recalled what one of many former president’s supporters instructed her.
“One stranger instructed me I used to be fortunate it’s 2020 and never 1920. One other one instructed me that I ought to dangle alongside my mother for committing treason,” she mentioned.
Different individuals would ship her pictures of issues on hearth, or burning flags.
“Simply hateful issues you understand, saying I might die and it’s, one thing prefer it’s authorized for, I needed to ask my attorneys that, however they mentioned it’s authorized so that you can be killed for treason. And simply, a variety of that. Both I’m going to jail, I’m going to die, and I dedicated treason or simply racist phrases over, like actually again and again and again and again,” Moss mentioned.
“Folks confirmed up at my grandmother’s residence attempting to bust the door down and conduct a citizen’s arrest of my mother and me. The threats adopted me to work. Folks would e mail the final e mail handle for our workplace, so everybody might see the threats and hateful messages directed at me,” she added.
Even her 14-year-old son wasn’t exempt.
She had simply given her son his first cellphone that 12 months, she testified. It was her outdated telephone, nonetheless related to her outdated quantity. Folks would discover that quantity and direct their hate to it. She couldn’t defend her son from the hate Trump had whipped right into a frenzy.
When she sat for her interview earlier than the committee on June 1, 2022, Moss mentioned her son was doing “a lot better.”
“Like I mentioned, he is needed to actually develop up actually quick. So he is 15 now, however he looks like he has to guard me in each side. He is turn out to be, like, far more conscious, not like a child, you understand, that simply does not care. Like, he needs to know what’s that within the mailbox, and he is simply, unhappy to say, it is like he turned from 14 to 21 in a single day, like mentally,” she testified.
His research at school—already digital due to the COVID-19 pandemic—took successful. The fixed barrage of harassment deluging his telephone was a relentless interruption.
“He had simply—he simply acquired a telephone. I lastly let him have a telephone, as a result of boys might be boys. And, you understand, as a result of I used to be—it was, like, 4 elections that 12 months. I used to be at all times at work, and when it is an election, it is time beyond regulation. So I wished, you understand, to have the ability to contact him. And college was digital. It was COVID. He was at residence … In order that they discovered my social media, however my handle is why they ended up at my grandmother’s home. And my telephone quantity is why they have been all on my son’s telephone and knocking him out of sophistication all day as a result of he was digital. And I am sorry; election employees do not receives a commission that a lot. I can not afford WiFi. So he makes use of the hotspot on the cellphone to be on the Chromebook to go to highschool. And, yeah, he failed each class that 12 months. First time ever.”
Within the wake of Trump’s harassment in 2020, Moss needed to change her hair so individuals wouldn’t acknowledge her on the street. Her son additionally modified his look.
She locked down her social media accounts, making them non-public, and took steps to insulate herself. However in June when she met with the committee, she recalled how even that wasn’t adequate. She posted a contented video of herself receiving an award. It was solely accessible to her family and friends.
An individual she grew up with wrote in the feedback beneath the video: “It’s not nice what occurred to your mother and your son, however as somebody who has seen proof, why aren’t you in jail?”
The particular person then despatched her screenshots of a chunk circulating within the Gateway Pundit supporting Trump’s Large Lie. She deleted the posts and tried speaking to her good friend however blocked them after they doubled down with the disinformation.
It was the primary time somebody from inside her personal circle had approached her like this.
The shadow Trump forged over her life now reached into lifelong friendships.
Moss mentioned she broke down crying when she relayed this alternate to her attorneys.
Moss liked her job as an election employee and when all of this got here crashing down on her, she instructed investigators she walked again by way of the alternatives of her life. Perhaps if she had simply gone to work on the Property Tax workplace and never the Registrations and Elections workplace, none of this might have occurred. For years she processed ballots for Republicans and Democrats in equal measure. That was her position. That was her obligation. It hadn’t occurred to her that anybody might ever accuse her or different election employees of doing something completely different.
“I assumed we have been simply serving to individuals register and working the elections. I didn’t know individuals may very well be so merciless,” she mentioned.
She left the Fulton County Registration and Elections Division in final Might.
When an investigator requested Moss if she would have stayed on the job if not for Trump’s actions, she mentioned she would have.
“Sure. Properly, I’ll simply say, everybody is gone. Everyone seems to be both fired or made too uncomfortable and give up,” she mentioned. “My workplace was, like, beneath assault. Not simply me. They appear to hate your entire county of you understand, Registration and Elections.”
In December 2021, Freeman and Moss sued Giuliani for defamation. Giuliani tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, saying his conduct and speech was protected beneath the First Modification. The choose presiding over the matter at a federal court docket in Washington, D.C., rejected Giuliani’s protests. In an preliminary lawsuit, Moss and Freeman additionally named One America Information, its house owners, and the community’s chief White Home correspondent. They reached a settlement, nevertheless, and have been dismissed from the go well with, however not earlier than admitting throughout a broadcast that neither lady dedicated fraud.
