Shaye Moss’s life changed forever on December 10, 2020, when Rudy Giuliani, then’s top lawyer in President Donald Trump’s campaign, publicly claimed that she and her mother, a colleague in Fulton County, Ga., Had falsified the result. in her state. . Moss’s supervisor suggested that day that she check her social media accounts to see if she had received any threats, as others in the office had done. She was surprised by what she saw when she uploaded her Facebook Messenger account. “There were a lot of horrible things there,” Moss told a hearing Tuesday before a House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Many of the messages were racist and “hateful,” said Moss, who is black. “Many death threats threatened me that I would be in prison with my mother and saying things like ‘Be happy that it is 2020 and not 1920’.” ” That was just the beginning. Moss eventually stopped going to the grocery store, where she feared that her acquaintances might say her name and draw the attention of the faithful to Trump’s allegations of voter fraud. Election deniers showed up at her grandmother’s house and tried to enter to find evidence of fraud. Both she and her mother, Ruby Freeman, were forced into hiding. They quit their jobs at Fulton County Registration and Election, where Moss had proudly served as a pollster for more than a decade. ““My grandmother always told me how important it is to vote and how people before me, many older people in my family, did not have that right,” Moss told the committee. “So what I liked most about my job was the bigger voters. They like to call. They like to talk to you. I was always excited to send all the absentee ballots for the disabled elderly. I even remember that I drove to a hospital to submit her application for a ballot in absentia. “ The emotional testimony of Moss and Freeman elicited a thrilling hearing, the fourth in a panel so far that focused on Trump’s campaign of pressure on state and local officials to turn his loss into half a dozen disputed states. In particular, mother and daughter, has revealed in tremendous detail the cost of Trump’s baseless allegations about the 2020 election contest for workers’ lives, many of whom have described violent threats. “We are on the wrong track”: Election officials fear for their personal safety amid a torrent of false allegations Moss said she was speechless when her superiors showed her a recording of Giuliani’s statement to a Georgia Senate committee investigating the 2020 outcome. Giuliani claimed that Moss and Freeman had planned to oust observers at State Farm Arena, where the county had organized a ballot counting operation. They had brought suitcases full of fake ballots for Biden and had scanned them in the rankings several times, he said. He described the arena video, which he claimed showed the two USB memory sticks swapping, possibly containing fake ballot numbers, “as if they were cocaine vials”. “I mean, it is obvious to anyone who is a criminal investigator or prosecutor that he is involved in covert, illegal activity,” Giuliani said. “And they are still walking in Georgia. They should have already been questioned. “Their homes should have been searched for evidence.” A spokesman for Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), Who led the interrogation at Tuesday’s hearing, asked Moss: “None of this was true, right?” Moss’s answer: “None of this.” Schiff then asked about the USB memory stick. “What did your mom give you in this video?” “A mint with ginger,” Moss said. Trump also personally attacked Freeman and Moss in a telephone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger (R) a few days before the Capitol attack, citing Freeman 18 times and at one point describing her as a “professional voter swindler and hustle and bustle”. The Washington Post received a recording of the call and published it last year. The threats and harassment that followed even reached Moss’s grandmother, who called one day, screaming to say that people had knocked on her door, and when she opened it, she tried to push into the house looking for Moss and Freeman. Moss recounted how awful she felt telling her grandmother, “that she likes to take her steps while walking in the neighborhood,” that she had to stop exercising outside for her own safety. At night, pranksters were “constantly” sending pizzas to her house that delivery guides were waiting to pay for, Moss testified. “I just felt so helpless and so horrible to her,” Moss said. Siff closed Moss’ appearance by asking her how many other election officials pictured in the State Farm Arena surveillance video were still working for Fulton County. “There is no permanent election official or supervisor in this video that is still there,” he said. The committee played a recorded testimony from Freeman, who was sitting behind her daughter on Tuesday, but did not testify in person about how her life was also turned upside down by Trump. The testimony left Freeman in tears and Moss wiping her eyes and trembling. Freeman told the committee she was known as “Lady Ruby” and had set up her own small business, a store “serving ladies with unique fashions”, using the adjective. He was wearing a “Lady Ruby” shirt as he counted ballots at the State Farm Arena – but he will not wear it again. “I will not be introduced by my name anymore,” Freeman said. “I get anxious when I fall into someone I know at the grocery store who says my name. I’m worried about who is listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I always care about who is around me. I lost my name and I lost my reputation. “I have lost my sense of security.” Moss and Freeman filed defamation lawsuits against Giuliani last year as well as pro-Trump media outlets, including One America News. They compromised with OAN in May for unclear terms. As part of the settlement, the OAN quoted a report saying that Georgian officials had concluded that there was no “widespread voter fraud” at State Farm Arena and that neither Freeman nor Moss was involved in fraud or criminal conduct. Giuliani filed for dismissal in early June. In the week of January 6, the FBI contacted Freeman to tell her to leave her home safely. He stayed away for two months. “I do not feel safe anywhere. “Nowhere,” Freeman said. “Do you know how it feels to be targeted by the President of the United States? The President of the United States is supposed to represent every American, not just one. “But it targeted me, Lady Ruby, a small business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stood up to help Fulton County run in a pandemic.” Jacqueline Alemany contributed to this report.
The uprising of January 6
The Parliamentary Select Committee investigating the uprising on January 6, 2021 is holding its third high-profile hearing this month. Find the latest here. Hearings in Congress: The House committee investigating the US Capitol attack has conducted more than 1,000 interviews in the past year. He will share his findings in a series of hearings from June 9. See what we know about the hearings and how to follow them. The riot: On January 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Five people died that day or shortly afterwards, and 140 police officers were attacked. During the siege: During the riots, rioters dangerously approached the building’s interior shrines while lawmakers were still there, including former Vice President Mike Pence. The Washington Post looked at text messages, photos and videos to create a video timeline of what happened on January 6th. Tariff: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants have been charged with rioting, along with Oathkeepers leader Stewart Rhodes and about a dozen associates, for their involvement in the Capitol attack. These are just some of the hundreds who have been charged, many of whom have been punished with much less punishment than the government has demanded.
