Congressional investigators Thursday released transcripts of interviews with two Fulton County election workers whose lives were upended by then-President Donald Trump’s false allegations of voting fraud.
Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, spoke in the spring to a U.S. House of Representatives panel investigating the events that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. During a public hearing in June, they recounted how Trump’s lies fueled threats against them and forced Freeman to flee her own home.
The transcripts released Thursday offer a more detailed account. In her interview, Moss placed the blame squarely on Trump and Rudy Giuliani, the attorney who spun a false tale of fraud involving the election workers during his appearance at a state Senate hearing in December 2020. The secretary of state’s office, the FBI and a U.S. attorney’s office investigated the claims and found the election workers did nothing improper.
“Former President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and their allies just didn’t like the outcome of the election,” Moss told investigators. “So they attacked us simply because we were doing our job.
“As a result, I’ve been threatened and harassed,” Moss said. “One stranger told me I was lucky it’s 2020 and not 1920. Another told me I should hang alongside my mom for committing treason.”
Freeman, Moss’ mother, shared her own painful account of receiving hundreds of threatening calls and messages. And she recounted how the FBI warned her to leave her house in the days before Jan. 6. She didn’t return for two months.
“Because it was just that bad, with people coming to my home and threatening me and me getting mail, letters and phone calls, you know, the phone calls saying different stuff, like ‘We know where you live. We’re coming to get you,’ ” Freeman told investigators. “It was a lot of different horrible, racist threats.”
Nearly a year and a half later, she told investigators she still sometimes slept with the lights on.
Freeman and Moss later filed a defamation lawsuit against Giuliani and the One America News Network. The network settled the lawsuit and admitted during a broadcast that Moss and Freeman did not commit fraud.
A judge recently rejected Giuliani’s request to dismiss the claims against him, saying he had pushed a false voting fraud narrative. The lawsuit is still pending and may ultimately be decided by a jury.
About the Author
