FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The Fulton County racketeering indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 others includes charges that five of them--including Trump--criminally targeted two Fulton County election workers who were counting the votes from the November 3, 2020, elections.
The workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, have said that they received death threats because they were falsely accused of helping rig the election for Joe Biden.
Now the accusers are the ones who are accused.
Freeman and Moss were accused by then-President Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani, and others, of having secret suitcases under the tables where the votes were being counted, suitcases full of fake Biden votes—accusations that were quickly debunked.
County, state and federal investigators examined security video of the vote counting, and conducted interviews of Freeman and Moss and others, and concluded that the "suitcases" were routine ballot containers full of legitimate votes.
And now the Fulton County indictment says that Trump and Giuliani, and three of the other defendants, committed felonies when they targeted Freeman and Moss with those false accusations.
“She stuffed the ballot boxes,” Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—speaking of Ruby Freeman—during a phone call on January 2, 2021. “They were stuffed like nobody’s ever seen them stuffed before.”
Giuliani had made similar accusations against Freeman and Moss during legislative hearings at Georgia’s state capitol in December 2020.
And Freeman and Moss later told the House January 6 Committee, in Washington, that the false accusations from Giuliani and Trump and others unleashed a nationwide fury against them.
“Do you know how it feels to have the President of the United States to target you?” Freeman asked the Committee.
“A lot of threats, wishing death upon me,” Moss testified.
Another potential victim of the so-called “suitcase-gate,” who was not named in the indictment, was then-U.S. Attorney BJ Pak of Atlanta, a Trump appointee.
Pak testified before the January 6 Committee in June 2022 that the White House had ordered him to investigate.
And Pak did.
“And (we) determined that nothing irregular happened in the counting,” Pak said, “and the allegations made by Mr. Giuliani were false.”
And with those findings, Pak was immediately forced out of the Trump administration.
Now, Trump and Giuliani and others are facing possible years in prison if convicted of charges that include criminally targeting a mother and daughter with false accusations in order to try to beat Biden.
11Alive is working to try to reach Freeman and Moss, and their attorney, for comment on the indictment naming the two as innocent victims of the alleged conspiracy.