“Do you know how it feels to have the President Of The United States target you?” Ruby Freeman asked. It’s a question that demands accountability in this “land of the free.”
It was Lady Ruby who crystalized for the public how Donald Trump used the power of the presidency to endanger patriotic citizens in his greedy desperation to hold on to an election he had lost.
Ruby Freeman is a grandmother and the mother of 1/6 committee witness Ms. Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, herself a former Georgia election worker. They were both election workers, and both were falsely defamed by Donald Trump, accused without evidence of rigging the November 2020 election for Joe Biden with “suitcases” of ballots.
They were featured in a video that Rudy Giuliani called a “smoking gun” for voting fraud.
Lady Ruby’s testimony was played during Tuesday’s hearing. She was asked about fleeing her home, which she said the FBI warned her to do in advance of January 6th, due to threats.
Lady Ruby perfectly sums up Trump’s abuse of power, ” 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.” pic.twitter.com/cvmovBj87B
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) June 21, 2022
Lady Ruby lost so much due to Trump and his mafia’s Big Lie. She even lost her name.
Lady Ruby, “I have lost my name, and I have lost my reputation. I have lost my sense of security , all because… number 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.” pic.twitter.com/nle0UA66Yi
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) June 21, 2022
The election was the most secure election in our history.
The election was not stolen, and Donald Trump knew this as he pushed these dangerous lies. The committee established that previously.
Prior to this, Freeman called the police often to report threats (here’s a recording of a 911 call) including calls for her hanging and urging Trump supporters to hunt her. Reuters reported in December that the threats had still not been investigated a year later, and no arrests were made.
“a year after Donald Trump and his allies falsely accused Freeman – along with her daughter and co-worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss – of election fraud, the threats have not been investigated by local police or state authorities, according to a Reuters review of Georgia law enforcement records. Federal agents have monitored some of the threats, but made no arrests.”
It’s very disturbing how quickly our government moved to protect Brett Kavanaugh, who already was guarded by U.S. Marshals, but did not even move to investigate the intimidation, harassment, and verified threats received by these two women who are just ordinary citizens doing the kind of election job most people had no interest in to prior to Trump’s attempted coup.
The two women told Reuters “about threats of lynching and racial slurs, along with alarming visits by strangers to the homes of Freeman and her mother.” The threats began “when the Trump campaign released surveillance video they falsely claimed showed the two women, who are Black, opening “suitcases” full of phony ballots to rig the vote count in predominantly Black Fulton County, which includes part of Atlanta.”
Trump often uses Black people as scapegoats, knowing that his cult is already primed to see Black people as the Enemy and have been falsely told (by Trump and others) for years that Black people cheat at elections. This is the same behavior we saw by Trump thugs in Detroit at a predominantly Black voting location.
“If you are not listening to the testimony of Ruby Freemon right now, you are missing the most chilling testimony about the state of our union on # January 6th.This must be what it felt like during the #Nuremberg trials. Any politician who promoted #TheBigLie should be in prison,” U.S. House candidate from Texas Kathleen Brown tweeted.
“Ruby Freeman loved her name. She was known by “Lady Ruby” for decades in her community. She can’t use it anymore. Not for her business, not at restaurants. She can’t hear her own name without panicking. This is the cost of misinformation. They stole Miss Ruby’s name,” NBC reporter Brandy Zadrozny tweeted.
We’ve heard throughout these hearings about Donald Trump and his lies targeting various people and their families with violence. It has been heartbreaking each time, from V.P Pence just feet away from a mob that wanted to lynch him to Brad Raffensberger’s family dealing with horrific threats.
But there is something profoundly metamorphic about everyday citizens being targeted by these lies, people without power, people who had no means of protection, people just like any of us.
This is what fascism looks like in action. It’s what it feels like to be under the thumb of a dictator. It happened in the United States of America and no one with the power to investigate it even cared.
Ruby Freeman is a grandmother, a patriotic citizen doing her bit and during a pandemic no less. Donald Trump targeted her and her daughter, based on a lie, and their lives were turned upside down. They are not safe. They are afraid.
Their story is the story of what it looks like when the President is an abusive, vile person who puts his own greedy needs to save face and steal power above the safety of the people he is supposed to care for. This is what it feels like to be a patriot under Donald Trump and his Republican enablers.
Ms. Jones is the co-founder/ editor-in-chief of PoliticusUSA and a member of the White House press pool.
Sarah hosts Politicus News and co-hosts Politicus Radio. Her analysis has been featured on several national radio, television news programs and talk shows, and print outlets including Stateside with David Shuster, as well as The Washington Post, The Atlantic Wire, CNN, MSNBC, The Week, The Hollywood Reporter, and more.
Sarah is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.