WASHINGTON — Two former Fulton County election workers who were falsely accused of ballot fraud after the 2020 election will be honored by President Joe Biden during a White House ceremony marking two years since insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Biden also plans to bestow the Presidential Citizens Medal upon Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, a Georgia native, during Friday’s event. She was the first officer injured when the Capitol was breached on Jan. 6, 2021.
In total, Biden will recognize 12 law enforcement officers, election workers, and state and local officials. The Citizens Medal is awarded to individuals who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens” and is considered the nation’s second-highest civilian honor.
Edwards and the Fulton election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, all provided powerful testimony to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Edwards was the star witness during the first public hearing, recounting her experience on the front lines when Trump supporters breached security barriers.
“There were officers on the ground,” she said during that June meeting. “They were bleeding; they were throwing up. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage. It was chaos.”
Freeman and Moss, who are mother and daughter, testified two weeks later about the harassment they faced after then-President Donald Trump and his allies said they had helped commit election fraud that helped Biden carry the state of Georgia. Multiple lawsuits and investigations unveiled no wrongdoing.
Moss, who is Black, told the committee she no longer checked her Facebook page because strangers continued to flood her page with racist attacks.
“Wishing death upon me, telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like ‘be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920,’” Moss said.
She and her mother were working at State Farm Arena on the night of the 2020 general election when they were captured on video pulling ballot containers out from under a table and counting them late at night.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani used snippets of the video to spin a tale of voting fraud during a Georgia Senate hearing in December 2020. The accusations became a major focus of Trump’s claim that voting fraud allowed Biden to win Georgia.
State and federal investigators watched the entire video and interviewed Freeman, Moss and other witnesses. They determined nothing improper happened — the video showed normal vote-counting.
But Trump and his allies continued to spread the false allegations of voting fraud, singling out Freeman and Moss. The two women received hundreds of threats from people who believed Trump’s false claims.
The pair later filed a defamation lawsuit against One America News Network and Giuliani. The network settled the lawsuit and admitted during a broadcast that Freeman and Moss did not commit voting fraud. In the fall a judge rejected Giuliani’s request to dismiss the case.
Trump continues to bring negative attention to Freeman, including in a recent post on social media where he accused her of providing inconsistent testimony to the Jan. 6 committee.
The White House honor is not the first Freeman and Moss have received. Earlier this year, Moss won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
Others who will be recognized at Friday’s event include Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer who helped divert rioters away from senators while they evacuated on Jan. 6, and Michael Fanone, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer who was injured during the attack and has since become a vocal critic of Republican lawmakers’ response.
