Advertisement

Jan. 6 hearing: Ga. election worker and her mother say Trump's 'lies' led to death threats

A former Georgia election worker told the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday that “lies” spread by then-President Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani about her and her mother taking part in a voter fraud scheme led to death threats and harassment in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

In a hearing before the House select panel investigating the events that led to the Capitol riot, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, an election worker in Fulton County, testified that false claims made by the former president, his personal lawyer and their allies about her and her mother, “Lady” Ruby Freeman, a temporary election worker, “turned my world upside down.”

“I don’t want anyone knowing my name,” Moss said. “I don’t wanna go anywhere with my mom ’cause she might yell my name out over the grocery aisle or something. I don’t go to the grocery store at all. I haven’t been anywhere.

“I second-guess everything that I do,” she continued. “It’s affected my life in a major way, in every way, all because of lies for me doing my job, same thing I’ve been doing forever.”

Wandrea “Shaye” Moss testifies before the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a former Georgia election worker, testifies before the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump and Giuliani made numerous false allegations about Moss and Freeman, claiming they used a suitcase to sneak ballots into Atlanta’s State Farm Arena on election night, and that Freeman passed Moss a flash drive as the votes were being tallied.

The supposed flash drive was, in reality, a ginger mint, Moss said.

As a result, Moss said, she and her family were repeatedly harassed by Trump supporters who believed the former president’s false claims.

At the urging of her boss, Moss said she checked her Facebook messages and there “were just a lot of horrible things there.” They included “a lot of threats, 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.’”

“A lot of them were racist, a lot of them were just hateful,” Moss said.

She said her son also received threats and that at one point, people went to her grandmother’s house and tried to make a “citizen’s arrest.”

Moss and her mother, “Lady” Ruby Freeman, at the hearing.
Moss and her mother, “Lady” Ruby Freeman, at the Jan. 6 hearing. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Freeman, who sat behind Moss, testified earlier before the committee. A tape of her testimony was played during the hearing.

Freeman said she was forced to go into hiding after the FBI told her it would not be safe for her to be at home around Jan. 6, 2021, and until the inauguration. She said she stayed away for two months.

“It was horrible,” Freeman said. “I felt homeless. I can’t believe this person [Trump] has caused this much damage to me and my family, to have to leave my home.”

Freeman said she lost her reputation and a sense of security because Trump and Giuliani “decided to scapegoat me and my daughter to push their own lies about the election being stolen.”

“There is nowhere I feel safe, nowhere,” Freeman said. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American — not to target one. But he targeted me — Lady Ruby, a small-business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stand up to help Fulton County run an election in the middle of the pandemic.”

Freeman sits at a desk in prerecorded testimony shown during the hearing.
Freeman in prerecorded testimony shown during the hearing. (House TV)

The hearing was the fourth in a series of public presentations by the House select committee stemming from its investigation of the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Tuesday’s hearing was focused on Trump’s efforts to pressure state officials in Arizona and Georgia to deny his 2020 election loss. Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgia Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling testified before Moss.

In her written testimony, Moss — who served as an election worker in 2016, when Trump carried Georgia — said it didn’t matter to her who won because she is “not a political person.”

“This job was never about politics for me,” Moss said. “It was about counting every vote.”

Rusty Bowers, Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling sit before the January 6 committee.
Rusty Bowers, Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling at Tuesday’s hearing. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)