“Years after their lives were turned upside down by conspiracy theorists, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye ‘Shaye’ Moss, were officially cleared by Georgia authorities on Tuesday.” https://t.co/x2qyuwVFfT
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) June 21, 2023
Things people who rubbed a couple of brain cells together knew in November 2020: https://t.co/x2qyuwVFfT pic.twitter.com/JK2z6JSqHy
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) June 21, 2023
Rolling Stone:
… On Tuesday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the closure of an investigation into claims of fraud made by former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, after the DA’s office found no evidence that would substantiate the claims. “Over the course of the investigation, it was confirmed that numerous allegations made against the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections, and specifically, two election workers, were false and unsubstantiated,” Raffensberg’s office wrote in a press release.
Giuliani had accused two Georgia election workers, Rudy Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss of having committed various acts of fraud in the course of counting ballots in Fulton County. Conspiracies leveled against Freeman and Moss included claims they had lied about flooding in election headquarters in order to have poll watchers removed, counted ballots multiple times, and snuck extra ballots into the count to inflate President Joe Biden’s margins. Freeman and Moss have since filed a defamation suit against Giuliani.
The allegations against Freeman and Moss became drivers of larger efforts by Trump and his allies to interfere with Georgia’s election outcomes. The pair were subjected to extreme harassment and threats by the former president’s devotees, and became key witnesses to the manner in which conspiracies about the election were formed and weaponized. During her testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, Moss was asked about the attorney’s claims that she and Freeman had exchanged a “USB drive” full of votes. Moss revealed that the drive was actually a piece of candy.
Over the course of the investigation, which was conducted with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and FBI, Raffensperger’s office found that “there was no evidence of any type of fraud as alleged.” Additionally, investigators found that social media posts purporting to show an admission of voter fraud from an election worker were created by an individual who “admitted he created a fake account and confirmed the content that was posted on the account was fake.”
“We remain diligent and dedicated to looking into real claims of voter fraud,” Raffensperger said. “We are glad the state election board finally put this issue to rest. False claims and knowingly false allegations made against these election workers have done tremendous harm. Election workers deserve our praise for being on the front lines.” …
Not to be vindictive (ha!), but I agree with Charlie Pierce, at Esquire — “Give Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss All the Money”:
Now it’s time for these brave women to get paid.
Take it all. Houses. Cars. Skivvies. Everything. Every stick of gilded furniture. Every stitch of tailored clothes. Every last dime. Leave ’em all wearing a barrel…
These two women represented thousands of other of our fellow citizens who volunteer every election cycle to do the scut work of self-government. They’re the ones who check the registration rolls. They’re the ones who grind away counting votes through the night, a tedious, thankless task on its best days, but one that now has been rendered physically dangerous through the efforts of soulless political vampires, the legions of the political undead…
I’m proud to be Ruby Freeman’s fellow citizen. And I hope, a couple of years down the road, she’s living in a monumentally tacky seaside mansion in Florida and wondering what in hell you do with a gold-plated commode.
Open Thread: Ruby Freeman & Shaye Moss Are Officially ExoneratedPost + Comments (61)