Kutti didn’t tell Freeman that she worked for the hip-hop billionaire and longtime Trump supporter, she just said she was sent by a “high-ranking person”.
According to Kutti’s website, her customers include World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Terence Crawford; Queen Rania of Jordan; and Kanye West.
Freeman initially called 911 when Kutti arrived. After months of threats and intimidation, she was afraid of anyone knocking on her door.
Freeman’s hell began on December 3, 2020 after the campaign’s alleged surveillance video revealed that Freeman and her daughter, both black, opened “briefcases” containing false ballots in order to rig the election in Fulton County, a predominantly black one County, which also includes Georgia.
The footage was reportedly reviewed by The Gateway Pundit, a far-right news website. On December 2, Freeman and her daughter filed a defamation lawsuit against the outlet on charges of false fraud.
When Kutti told a neighbor that Freeman’s life was in danger, Freeman agreed to see Kutti, but only in the presence of a Cobb County police officer.
An officer arrived and spoke to Kutti, who, according to the police files, posed as a “crisis manager”.
Kutti repeated that Freeman was “in danger” and had “48 hours” before “unknown subjects” would turn up at her home. The officer recommended that Kutti and Freeman talk to each other at the police station.
Reuters received the Video of a request for public records.
“I can’t say what exactly will happen,” says Kutti Freeman in the recording. “All I know is that it will disturb your freedom,” she adds, “and the freedom of one or more of your family members.
“You’re a loose end to a party that needs to be cleaned up,” continued Kutti. She added that “covenants” were involved without giving details.
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The police bodycam video, recorded on January 4, 2021, shows Trevian Kutti, a publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West, narrating a Georgia election worker whom former President Trump falsely accused of tampering with votes that she is in imminent danger https: // t .co / AeF1I18mdJ pic.twitter.com/ott7ohVQnI
– Reuters (@Reuters) December 10, 2021
Then Kutti asked the officer to give them privacy. Over the next hour, Reuters reports that Kutti and a man on a phone identified as “Harrison Ford” – whom Kutti says is a “black crisis manager” – are trying to convince Freeman to commit himself to the poll Accusing the 2020 elections offers her a lawyer, Freeman says.
“If you don’t tell everything,” Freeman recalls, as Kutti said, “you go to jail.”
Freeman becomes suspicious and says she jumped up from her chair and said to Kutti, “The devil is a liar” before calling for an officer.
The next day, Freeman says an FBI agent urged her to leave her 20-year-old home. Right-wing extremists discussed her on Parler, talked about her murder. “She will be missing very soon,” it said in a post. Another said she would become “suicidal with two bullets in the back of the head”. Another said, “It’s time for Ruby to die for what she believed in.”
The next day was January 6th, and just as Kutti had warned, an angry crowd of Trump supporters surrounded their home.
But in all the time since the controversial video accusing Freeman and Moss of electoral fraud, no one has been held accountable for the threats made against them.
“Charges must be brought against those who threaten and encourage threats from election officials,” Matt Masterson, a Republican who headed election security at the Department of Homeland Security between 2018 and 2020, told Reuters. “I see no way out without real responsibility being taken.”
The women reported the harassment to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), but said the office’s only reaction was to show Freeman how to make her Facebook page private.
The GBI told Reuters that Georgia law only allows the office to investigate if requested by the police or other government official, which it did not in the case of Freeman and Moss.
Moss and Freeman were both forced to change their looks for their own safety.
Freeman’s 14-year-old grandson used her old phone for school as the family didn’t have WiFi, and in 2020 his classes were all virtual.
Moss told Reuters in an exclusive interview that one message read, “Be glad it’s 2020, not 1920. You’d be hanging out with your mom.”
The flood of threats was so overwhelming that he eventually turned off the phone. He failed in most of his classes and had to go to summer school.
Before the Trump video, Moss says her life was carefree. She loved being the face of the Fulton County polling station. She is afraid to do more than go to work.
“I can’t enjoy anything,” she told Reuters. “I just really lost myself.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, told Reuters she was urging the US Department of Justice to act and take threats against election officials more seriously. “This is an escalating problem,” said Klobuchar. “Law enforcement agencies need to start investigating these cases for what they are, which is a great threat to our democracy.”
Freeman installed dozens of her own security cameras in her home, along with motion sensors, just to feel safe.
“Is it all about it?” Freeman says and refers to Trump’s fraudulent false allegations. “That is not right.”
