Two former election workers in Georgia have filed a lawsuit against Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, as well as against One America News and several of the network’s top executives. The suit claims Giuliani and the others promoted conspiracy theories about the workers’ actions in the 2020 election which the workers assert threatened their livelihoods and placed them in physical danger.
Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, worked counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Fulton County, Georgia, during the 2020 election. In their lawsuit, filed Thursday in Washington, D.C., they contend that they became the subjects of conspiracy theories by OAN and Giuiani, the former mayor of New York.
“As a result of their vital service, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss have become the objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment,” they said in Thursday’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. “They found themselves in this unenviable position not based on anything they did, but instead because of a campaign of malicious lies designed to accuse them of interfering with a fair and impartial election, which is precisely what each of them swore an oath to protect.”
In December of last year, the Trump campaign posted a clip from OAN in which a woman claimed a poll worker was pulling ballots out of a suitcase to tip the election toward Joe Biden. That clip had been shared in a state legislative hearing by Trump’s team, which included Giuliani.
The office of Georgia’s Secretary of State shot down the allegations of fraud as described in that clip.
“The 90 second video of election workers at State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by [Georgia secretary of state] investigators,” Gabriel Sterling, a senior official in the state’s secretary of state office who became the face of efforts to push back against election-fraud claims from Trump, tweeted at the time. “Shows normal ballot processing.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who earned the ire of President Trump due to claiming there was no fraud in Georgia, said Giuliani and other Trump team members “sliced and diced that video and took it out of context.”
Politico noted of the lawsuit from Freeman and Moss:
Thursday’s complaint argued that Giuliani and OAN pushed claims about Freeman and Moss even after state election officials released statements debunking the allegations. The lawsuit, which names OAN president Charles Herring, founder Robert Herring and the network’s White House correspondent Chanel Rion, noted that well into 2021 OAN continued to broadcast claims that Freeman engaged in election wrongdoing, despite evidence disproving those claims.
“With no concern for the truth or the consequences of their willful conduct, Defendants baselessly portrayed Plaintiffs as traitors who participated in a carefully planned conspiracy to steal the presidential election in Georgia,” the complaint said.
According to Freeman and Moss, the claims of fraud forced Freeman to shut down her online business, and she did not return to her home for months at the FBI’s recommendation.
The two election workers filed a similar lawsuit against the Gateway Pundit, asserting the news site engaged in a “campaign of lies” about them.
Earlier this year, Dominion Voting Systems filed a lawsuit against several conservative news outlets, such as OAN. It also sued individuals like Giuliani attorney Sidney Powell.
Giuliani has been the object of scrutiny from the Left and the Biden administration. In April, federal investigators executed search warrants at Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment and office, requesting “all electronic devices.” Later, he had his law license revoked.
One Justice Department probe of which Giuliani is subject seeks to determine whether Giuliani acted for Turkey when he pressed the Trump administration in 2017 to drop money-laundering charges against gold trader Reza Zarrab and deport exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The Turkish investigation is not criminal, though the simultaneous investigation into Giuliani’s work in Ukraine that prompted the raid of his home is.
Notably, Biden said earlier this month he will be using taxpayer money to fund media outlets throughout the world. The plan funding for defamation liability coverage that would protect journalists from being sued over their reporting.
It’s unlikely that journalists who work for OAN or similar outlets would ever receive funding from Biden to protect against lawsuits from the Left.
