WASHINGTON — A Fulton County election worker told a congressional panel she got racially-charged death threats after former President Donald Trump accused her of trying to add illegal votes in 2020. The woman and her mother were both workers who signed on with Fulton County to help handle the 2020 election.
Shaye Moss appeared before the Jan. 6 panel to describe how she and her mother spent weeks under fire from former President Trump and many of his backers.
"Shaye Freeman Moss and Ruby Freeman and another gentleman (were) quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports," Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told a Georgia legislative panel shortly after the election. Multiple recounts and investigations disproved the allegation, witnesses told the panel.
"What was your mom actually handing you in that video?" US Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Illinois) asked Moss.
"A ginger mint," she replied.
Her mother recorded an interview with the committee.
"Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you?" Ruby Freeman asked incredulously.
Her daughter said they got "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,'" she said, referring to lynching of Black people during the Jim Crow era.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testified under oath and under subpoena alongside his top election officer Gabriel Sterling. The committee is probing the riot at the capitol that came just four days after former President Trump called Raffensperger – and implored him to find enough votes to swing Georgia’s electoral votes to Trump.
“What are we gonna do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break,” Trump said in a recorded phone call.
As Raffensperger and Sterling refused Trump’s demand, tensions heightened. Trump rallied his supporters to back his false claims of voter fraud. And Raffensperger told the committee Trump backers started in on his family.
“And my wife started getting texts. They were typically sexualized texts which were disgusting," Raffensperger told the committee. "They started going after her to get to me – why don’t you quit and just walk away. So that happened. And then some people broke into my daughter-in-law’s home," he said.