In January 2021, Kanye West’s publicist pressed a Georgia election worker, Ruby Freeman, to confess to unfounded claims of election fraud, threatening her with prison in 48 hours if she did not do so.
The 62-year-old Freeman, who signed up to serve as a temporary worker in Fulton County, Georgia, to assist process and count absentee votes, faced violent abuse and threats when former President Donald Trump and his friends singled her out as the mastermind behind Trump’s defeat in Georgia.
So when Trevian Kutti, claiming to represent a “high-profile figure,” arrived at her house on January 4 to warn her that she was in danger, Freeman was hesitant to speak with her alone. She contacted the police and requested to meet with Kutti in a police station where their encounter would be videotaped.
“We didn’t want to scare you, but we had to locate you in this time period,” Kutti said in body camera video acquired from police, seen below.
Police bodycam video recorded on Jan. 4, 2021, shows Trevian Kutti, a publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West, telling a Georgia election worker who former President Trump falsely accused of manipulating votes that she was in imminent danger https://t.co/AeF1I18mdJ pic.twitter.com/ott7ohVQnI
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 10, 2021
Kutti told Freeman that she had “put in placement a way to move you, a way to secure you, from what may be secured over the next 48 hours.”
“We have probably have 48 hours in which to move you,” Kutti explained. “We would do it on your schedule. I cannot say specifically what will take place. I just know that it will disrupt your freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members.”
Kutti then said that she will contact a communications expert called Harrison Ford to discuss details and requested privacy from the officer. After the officer who was filming the bodycam clip left, Freeman stated that Kutti and the guy put pressure on him to admit to voting fraud. “If you don’t tell everything, you’re going to jail,” Kutti said, according to Freeman.
Pro-Trump demonstrators arrived on Freeman’s house two days later, on the morning of January 6, some armed with bullhorns. Freeman had fled her house the day before on the advise of the FBI and had been in hiding for two months, sleeping in Airbnbs and avoiding using credit cards that may be used to track her down.
“Whether you choose not to deal with us, I am not your enemy,” Kutti told Freeman in the conversation on January 4 describing Freeman as “a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up.”
Kutti went on to tell Freeman that she works “for some of the biggest names in the industry,” saying, “crisis is my thing.”
“I want her to be comfortable, but I want her to advise her that there are federal people who are involved here, and I don’t know who is connected to who,” Kutti told the police officer recording the footage. “And I really need for her to be as nonchalant as possible.”
According to her LinkedIn page, Kutti is a “a respected market and brand strategist to fashion, entertainment and media industries.”
She previously worked as a spokesman for R. Kelly, the infamous R&B musician who was convicted on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges in September, in addition to her public relations work for West.
Kutti, like West, has actively backed Trump and other Republicans, and has worked on the campaign of Angela Stanton King, a Republican who campaigned for Congress in 2020 for the late Rep. John Lewis’ seat in Atlanta, according to the Chicago Sun-Times in August 2020.
DON’T MISS:
This Saturday, I’ll be speaking alongside Angela Stanton King and other members of the black community to discuss the dangers of segregation, in any form—something the family of MLK is very familiar with.
It’s time for all of We The People to come together. pic.twitter.com/PIQDAVFtoS
— Dr. Simone Gold (@drsimonegold) October 15, 2021
Kutti recently worked as a lobbyist for a marijuana company in Illinois and irritated Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration by calling the top official working on marijuana issues, Toi Huntichson, a “slave” on social media and saying she’d “keep my knee” on Huntichson’s neck.
Rick Barron, Fulton County’s departing elections director, stated in an email that he was unaware of Kutti’s advances to Freeman and had had no communication with her.
“It feels surreal to read about this,” Barron said. “As a non-partisan this makes me fear for our democratic institutions. I believe in government institutions rather than political parties. Those institutions have stood and evolved since the beginning of our republic. This was an obvious plot involving an ally of the former president to change the outcome of the election by pressuring someone to confess to crimes they didn’t commit.”
Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a full-time employee in the Fulton County elections division, have filed a defamation and intentional infliction of mental distress lawsuit against the Gateway Pundit, a famous right-wing website.
According to the lawsuit, the website that first identified them to their readers spread disinformation and unfounded allegations that placed the two women at the center of a grand, corrupt conspiracy to commit election fraud and steal the election from former President Donald Trump, causing both to face harassment and threats.
Source by [author_name]
