Trevian Kutti, a publicist for rapper Kanye West, pressured a Georgia election worker falsely accused by former President Donald Trump of manipulating votes to back up his false claims, Reuters reports.
Kutti traveled to the suburban Georgia home of election worker Ruby Freeman. Kutti did not say she worked for West, a longtime friend of Trump, but that she was sent by a “high-profile individual” to warn her that if she did not confess to Trump’s made-up voter fraud allegations people would come to her house within 48 hours and she would go to jail.
Freeman refused and called 911.
Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss were accused by Trump and his campaign of illegally counting phony mail-in ballots after pulling them from mysterious suitcases. In reality, the suitcases were standard ballot containers and the votes were properly counted, state and county officials have repeatedly confirmed.
But Trump and his allies have continued to accuse the pair of election rigging, leading to hundreds of threats made against them and their family members.
Police station meeting:
Freeman asked a neighbor to speak with Kutti, who told them that Freeman was in danger and that she had been sent to help. Freeman called 911, telling the dispatcher that “they’re saying that I need help” and “it’s just a matter of time that they are going to come out for me and my family.”
The responding officer suggested Freeman meet Kutti at the police station.
Police body cam video of the meeting shows part of the exchange.
“I cannot say what specifically will take place,” Kutti tells Freeman. “I just know that it will disrupt your freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members.”
“You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up,” Kutti said, adding that “federal people” were involved.
Kutti asked the officer to give them privacy and called up a man who spent the next hour pressuring Freeman to admit that she committed voter fraud.
“If you don’t tell everything you’re going to jail,” Freeman recalled being told.
Freeman abruptly left the meeting. The day after, an FBI agent called Freeman and urged her to leave her home because it wasn’t safe. The next day, a mob of angry Trump supporters surrounded her home.
Freeman sues conspiracy site:
Freeman and Moss earlier this month filed a lawsuit against the right-wing conspiracy theory blog The Gateway Pundit, accusing it of a “campaign of lies” that “instigated a deluge of intimidation, harassment, and threats that has forced them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts, and fear for their physical safety.”
The lawsuit says that Freeman was forced to shutter her business and flee her home for two months.
“People have said the most vile and violent and racist things about me and my family—on the phone, on my social media accounts, on email, and in person. Things you wouldn’t believe,” Freeman, who is Black, said in a statement. “The toll of all this on your life, day in and day out, it wears on you. I go to church and I know that God is my keeper, so I’m keeping my head up. But the impact is still there. For example, when I’m out in public and I hear someone call my name, I jump. Just hearing my name scares me.”
