In the federal criminal case accusing former President Donald Trump of multiple election-related conspiracies, prosecutors led by Special Counsel Jack Smith are using his attacks on ex-Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
The duo, a mother and daughter, were infamously named in debunked conspiracy theories insisting upon widespread election fraud after the two served as 2020 election workers in the Atlanta area. Trump ally Rudy Giuliani and the now former president himself singled out the pair, and in tandem with these lies, Freeman and Moss faced threats to their safety. They’ve sued Giuliani and are soon going to trial where a jury is set to determine the level of financial damages to impose upon the former New York City mayor.
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to publicly reference the conspiracy theories implicating Freeman and Moss years after leaving office. References involving disproved allegations of so-called suitcases of ballots — which were actually votes stashed in ordinary containers — have also popped up elsewhere, like from Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress. Smith’s team brought up Trump’s singling out of Freeman and Moss in the context of a court filing that outlined some of the evidence prosecutors intend to use, appearing to directly reference the social media commentary from Trump long after he departed power.
“Long after the charged conduct, the defendant continued to falsely attack two Georgia election workers despite being on notice that his claims about them in 2020 were false and had subjected them to vile, racist, and violent threats and harassment,” prosecutors said, adding: “In late December 2022, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol published transcripts of its interviews with the election workers, in which the women provided graphic testimony about the threats and harassment they endured after the defendant and his agents falsely accused them. In apparent response, the defendant then doubled down and recommenced his attacks on the election workers in posts on Truth Social.”
The government intends to point with this and related evidence to a Trump “plan of silencing, and intent to silence, those who spoke out against the defendant’s false election fraud claim” alongside Trump’s “repeated choice to attack individuals with full knowledge of this effect,” meaning threats his rhetoric spurred. Read the full filing right here.
