Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

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Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Mon Jan 04, 2021 12:31 pm

Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI: Election-fraud fan fiction spun out of control in 2020.
by Dan Evon
snopes.com
Published 18 December 2020

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Image
Image via Snopes Photo Illustration/Brandon Echter

Claim:

The FBI arrested Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman in December 2020.

Rating:

False.

Origin:

On Dec. 17, 2020, dozens of Twitter accounts started spamming social media with near-verbatim messages falsely claiming that a woman named Ruby Freeman had been arrested by the FBI for crimes related to election fraud in Atlanta, Georgia.

The viral copypasta read:

“HUGE BREAKING NEWS! Ruby Freeman (the Democrat suitcase blonde-braid woman in GA) has been arrested! She has acknowledged to law enforcement and investigators her role in the Fulton County methods of GOP witness complaints and the after hours ballot scheme count.”

There was no truth to this rumor. The FBI did not arrest Ruby Freeman for election fraud and this person was not suspected (outside of conspiracy-minded circles) of any illegal activity related to the 2020 election.

While most of the iterations of this viral message that we encountered simply contained the message above, some versions were part of longer Twitter threads that included additional claims about various charges that the FBI allegedly filed against Freeman.

The longer versions of this rumor claimed that the “source” of the information was an FBI statement posted in the early hours of Dec. 17. However, we found no such news release. We looked through the websites and social media pages of the FBI, the FBI’s Atlanta Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, and the Fulton County Police Department, but found no mention of Freeman’s alleged arrest.

The false rumors about Freeman’s arrest were just another installment in a weeks-long smear campaign against the U.S. electoral process. In early December, U.S. President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, disreputable websites such as the Gateway Pundit, and conspiracy-minded social media users started sharing a video that showed an election worker they identified as Freeman removing ballots from a suitcase. While Giuliani and others have claimed without evidence that this suitcase was filled with illegal ballots, election officials labeled this claim “ridiculous” and offered a much more reasonable explanation.

The New York Times reported:

Late on Nov. 3, election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, heard that they would be allowed to go home for the night. So they packed uncounted ballots into suitcases and prepared to lock up for the evening.

When word came that they couldn’t leave yet, they dragged the suitcases back out and began counting the ballots again.

That singular scene — of workers taking out suitcases of votes — was then selectively edited and shared by allies of President Trump as a conspiracy theory that election workers had dragged out fraudulent ballots under the cover of night. According to the theory, those suitcases helped swing Georgia’s Electoral College votes to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

But on Monday, Georgia’s secretary of state office dedicated part of a morning news conference to debunking that falsehood and many others, in what was called “Disinformation Monday.” Gabriel Sterling, the voting implementation manager in Georgia and a Republican, said in the news conference that watching the entire surveillance footage of Election Day showed that workers had first packed the suitcases with valid, uncounted ballots and then later unpacked those same ballots. They had not taken out suitcases full of fake ballots, he said.


After the suitcase-of-fraud claims were dismissed by election officials, social media users started sharing a “confession” that Freeman supposedly posted to her Instagram account. This Instagram account, however, does not actually belong to Freeman. Shortly after this “confession” went viral, the @RubyFreeman_Georgia Instagram account (which was created on the same day this message was posted), started sharing content that mocked those who fell for its ruse.

In addition to falsely accusing this woman of confessing to election fraud, many social media users also passed around a mug shot of an entirely different “Ruby Freeman” in an apparent attempt to further smear her character or resuscitate this rumor.

The accusations against Freeman were without merit, as were a plethora of claims holding that the 2020 presidential election was marred by widespread voter fraud. Claims of voter fraud have been dismissed by election officials and lawsuits alleging fraud have been dismissed by judges across the country.

As for Ruby Freeman, she was not arrested by the FBI and she is not suspected (outside of conspiracy-minded circles) of any wrongdoing related to the 2020 election.
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Mon Jan 04, 2021 1:18 pm

Full Phone Call: Trump Pressures Georgia Secretary of State To Recount Election Votes
NBC News
Jan 3, 2021

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During an hourlong phone call, President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes.”

***

Meadows: Mr. President, everyone is on the line. And just so -- this is Mark Meadows, the chief of staff. Just so we all are aware, on the line is the secretary of state, and two other individuals: Jordan and Mr. Germany with him. You also have the attorneys that represent the president, Kurt and Alex and Cleta Mitchell — who is not the attorney of record but has been involved — myself and then the president. So Mr. President, I'll turn it over to you.

Trump: OK, thank you very much. Hello Brad and Ryan and everybody. We appreciate the time and the call. So we've spent a lot of time on this, and if we could just go over some of the numbers I think it's pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia. You even see it by rally size, frankly. We'd be getting 25-30,000 people a rally, and the competition would get less than 100 people. And it never made sense.

But we have a number of things. We have at least 2 or 3 — anywhere from 250-300,000 ballots were dropped mysteriously into the rolls. Much of that had to do with Fulton County, which hasn't been checked. We think that if you check the signatures — a real check of the signatures going back in Fulton County, you'll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures, of people who have been forged. And we are quite sure that's going to happen.

Another tremendous number. We're going to have an accurate number over the next two days with certified accountants. But an accurate number will be given, but its in the 50s of thousands— and that's people that went to vote and they were told they can't vote because they've already been voted for. And it's a very sad thing. They walked out complaining. But the number's large. We'll have it for you. But it's much more than the number of 11,779 that's — The current margin is only 11,779. Brad, I think you agree with that, right? That's something I think everyone — at least that's a number that everyone agrees on.

But that's the difference in the votes. But we've had hundreds of thousands of ballots that we're able to actually — we'll get you a pretty accurate number. You don't need much of a number because the number that in theory I lost by, the margin would be 11,779. But you also have substantial numbers of people, thousands and thousands who went to the voting place on November 3, were told they couldn't vote, were told they couldn't vote because a ballot had been put in on their name. And you know that's very, very, very, very sad.

We had, I believe it's about 4,502 voters who voted but who weren't on the voter registration list. So it's 4,502 who voted, but they were not on the voter registration roll which they had to be. You had 18,325 vacant address voters. The address was vacant, and they're not allowed to be counted. That's 18,325.

A smaller number — you had 904 who only voted where they had just a P.O. — a post office box number — and they had a post office box number, and that's not allowed. We had at least 18,000 — that's on tape, we had them counted very painstakingly — 18,000 voters having to do with Ruby Freeman. She's a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler. Ruby Freeman. That was the tape that's been shown all over the world that makes everybody look bad, you, me, and everybody else.

Where they got — number one they said very clearly, and it's been reported, that they said there was a major water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back, Ruby Freeman and her daughter and a few people. There were no Republican poll watchers. Actually, there were no Democrat poll watchers, I guess they were them. But there were no Democrats either, and there was no law enforcement. Late in the morning, they went early in the morning, they went to the table with the black robe, the black shield, and they pulled out the votes. Those votes were put there a number of hours before the table was put there. I think it was -- Brad you would know -- it was probably eight hours or seven hours before, and then it was stuffed with votes.

They weren't in an official voter box, they were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases, but they weren't in voter boxes. The minimum number it could be, because we watched it, and they watched it certified in slow motion instant replay if you can believe it, but slow motion, and it was magnified many times over, and the minimum it was 18,000 ballots, all for Biden.


You had out-of-state voters -- they voted in Georgia, but they were from out of state -- of 4,925. You had absentee ballots sent to vacant, they were absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses. They had nothing on them about addresses, that's 2,326.

And you had drop boxes, which is very bad. You had drop boxes that were picked up. We have photographs, and we have affidavits from many people.

I don't know if you saw the hearings, but you have drop boxes where the box was picked up and not delivered for three days. So all sorts of things could have happened to that box including, you know, putting in the votes that you wanted. So there are many infractions, and the bottom line is, many, many times the 11,779 margin that they said we lost by. We had vast -- I mean the state is in turmoil over this.

And I know you would like to get to the bottom of it, although I saw you on television today, and you said that you found nothing wrong. I mean, you know, and I didn't lose the state, Brad. People have been saying that it was the highest vote ever. There was no way. A lot of the political people said that there's no way they beat me. And they beat me. They beat me in the, as you know, every single state, we won every state, we one every statehouse in the country. We held the Senate, which is shocking to people, although we'll see what happens tomorrow or in a few days.

And we won the House. But we won every single statehouse, and we won Congress, which was supposed to lose 15 seats, and they gained, I think 16 or 17 or something. I think there's now a difference of five. There was supposed to be a difference substantially more. But politicians in every state, but politicians in Georgia, have given affidavits, and are going to say that, that there was no way that they beat me in the election, that the people came out, in fact, they were expecting to lose, and then they ended up winning by a lot because of the coattails. And they said there's no way, that they've done many polls prior to the election. There was no way that they won.

Ballots were dropped in massive numbers. And we're trying to get to those numbers, and we will have them. They'll take a period of time. Certified. But, but, they're massive numbers. And far greater than the 11,779.

The other thing, dead people. So dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.

The bottom line is when you add it all up, and then you start adding, you know, 300,000 fake ballots -- Then the other thing they said is in Fulton County and other areas. And this may or may not, because this just came up this morning, that they are burning their ballots, that they are shredding, shredding ballots, and removing equipment. They're changing the equipment on the Dominion machines and, you know, that's not legal.

And they supposedly shredded, I think they said 300 pounds of, 3,000 pounds of ballots. And that just came to us as a report today. And yeah, it is a very sad situation.

But Brad, if you took the minimum numbers, we're many, many times above the 11,779. And many of those numbers are certified, or they will be certified, but they are certified. And those are numbers that are there, and that exist. And that beat the margin of loss, they beat it, I mean by a lot, and people should be happy to have an accurate count instead of an election where there's turmoil.

I mean, there's turmoil in Georgia and other places. You're not the only one, I mean we have other states that I believe will be flipping to us very shortly. But this is something that — You know, as an example, I think in Detroit, and I think there's a section, a good section of your state actually, which we're not sure, so we're not going to report it yet. But in Detroit we had, I think it was 139% of the people voted. That's not too good.

In Pennsylvania, they had well over 200,000 more votes than they had people voting. And uh, that doesn't play too well, and the legislature there is, which is Republican, is extremely activist and angry. But, I mean, there were other things also that were almost as bad as that. But, uh, they had as an example, in Michigan, a tremendous number of dead people that voted. I think it was, I think, Mark, it was 18,000. Some unbelievably high number, much higher than yours -- you were in the 4-5,000 category.

And that was checked out laboriously by going through, by going through the obituary columns in the newspapers.

So I guess with all of it being said, Brad, the bottom line -- and provisional ballots, again, you know, you'll have to tell me about the provisional ballots, but we have a lot of people that were complaining that they weren't able to vote because they were already voted for. And these are great people.

And, you know, they were shellshocked. I don't know if you call that provisional ballots. In some states we had a lot of provisional ballot situations where people were given a provisional ballot, because when they walked in on November 3, they were already voted for.

So that's it. I mean, we have many many times the number of votes necessary to win the state. And we won the state, and we won it very substantially, and easily, and we're getting, we have, much of this is a very, you know they're certified, far more certified than we need. But we're getting additional numbers certified, too. And we're getting pictures of dropboxes being delivered, and delivered late. And delivered three days later, in some cases. Plus we have many affidavits to that effect.

Meadows: So Mr. President, if I might be able to jump in, and I'll give Brad a chance. Mr. Secretary, obviously there is, there are allegations where we believe that not every vote, or fair vote, and legal vote, was counted, and that's at odds with the representation from the secretary of state's office. What I'm hopeful for is there some way that we can, we can find some kind of agreement to look at this a little bit more fully? You know, the president mentioned Fulton County.

But in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead, and so Mr. Secretary, I was hopeful that, you know, in a spirit of cooperation and compromise, is there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations, to find a path forward that's less litigious?

Raffensperger: Well, I listened to what the President has just said. President Trump, we've had several lawsuits, and we've had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. Um, we don't agree that you have won. I didn't agree about the 200,000 number that you'd mentioned. And I can go through that point by point.

What we have done is we gave our state Senate about one and a half hours of our time going through the election issue by issue, and then on the state House, the government affairs committee, we gave them about two and a half hours of our time, going back point by point on all the issues of contention. And then just a few days ago, we met with our U.S. congressmen, Republican congressmen, and we gave them about two hours of our time talking about this past election. Going back, primarily what you've talked about here, focused in on primarily, I believe, is the absentee ballot process. I don't believe that you're really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand retally, a 100% retally of all the ballots, and compared that to what the machines said, and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table. I don't think there's an issue about that.

I think what you--

Trump: Well, Brad, not that there's not an issue, because we have a big issue with Dominion in other states, and perhaps in yours. But we haven't felt we needed to go there. And just to, you know, maybe put a little different spin on what Mark is saying, Mark Meadows, uh, yeah, we'd like to go further, but we don't really need to. We have all the votes we need.

You know, we won the state. If you took, these are the most minimal numbers, the numbers that I gave you, those are numbers that are certified, your absentee ballots sent to vacant addresses, your out of state voters 4,925. You know, when you add them up, it's many, more times, it's many times the 11,779 number. So we could go through, we have not gone through your Dominion, so we can't give them blessing. I mean, in other states, we think we found tremendous corruption with Dominion machines, but we'll have to see.

But we only lost the state by that number, 11,000 votes, and 779. So with that being said, with just what we have, with just what we have, we're giving you minimal, minimal numbers. We're doing the most conservative numbers possible, we're many times, many, many times above the margin. And so we don't really have to, Mark, I don't think we have to go through ...

Meadows: Right, right.

Trump: Because, what's the difference between winning the election by two votes, and winning it by half a million votes? I think I probably did win it by half a million.

Meadows: Right.

Trump: You know, one of the things that happened, Brad, is we have other people coming in now from Alabama, and from South Carolina, and from other states, and they're saying it's impossible for you to have lost Georgia. We won. You know in Alabama, we set a record, got the highest vote ever. In Georgia, we set a record with a massive amount of votes. And they say it's not possible to have lost Georgia.

And I could tell you by our rallies. I could tell you by the rally I'm having on Monday night, the place, they already have lines of people standing out front waiting. It's just not possible to have lost Georgia. It's not possible. When I heard it was close, I said there's no way. But they dropped a lot of votes in there late at night. You know that, Brad. And that's what we are working on very, very stringently. But regardless of those votes, with all of it being said, we lost by essentially 11,000 votes, and we have many more votes already calculated and certified, too.

And so I just don't know, you know, Mark, I don't know what's the purpose. I won't give Dominion a pass because we found too many bad things. But we don't need Dominion, or anything else. We have won this election in Georgia based on all of this. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, Brad. You know I mean, having the correct — the people of Georgia are angry. And these numbers are going to be repeated on Monday night, along with others that we're going to have by that time which are much more substantial even. And the people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated. Because the 2,236 in absentee ballots, I mean, they're all exact numbers that were done by accounting firms, law firms, etc., and even if you cut 'em in half, cut 'em in half, and cut 'em in half, again, it's more votes than we need.

Raffensperger: Well Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen, and they were surprised.

But they — I guess there was a person Mr. Braynard that came to these meetings, and presented data, and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. And so that's wrong. That was two.

Trump: Well Cleta, how do you respond to that? I mean, you tell me.

Mitchell: Well, I would say Mr. Secretary, one of the things that we have requested, and what we said was, and if you look at this, if you read our petition, it said that we took the names and birth years, and we had certain information available to us. We have asked from your office for records that only you have, and so we said there is a universe of people who have the same name and same birth year and died.

But we don't have the records that you have. And one of the things that we have been suggesting, formally and informally for weeks now, is for you to make available to us the records that would be necessary —

Trump: But Cleta, even before you do that, and not even including that, that's why I hardly even included that number, although in one state we have a tremendous amount of dead people. So I don't know — I'm sure we do in Georgia, too. I'm sure we do in Georgia too.

But, um, we're so far ahead. We're so far ahead of these numbers, even the phony ballots of Ruby Freeman, known scammer. You know the Internet? You know what was trending on the Internet? "Where's Ruby?" Because they thought she'd be in jail. "Where's Ruby?" It's crazy, it's crazy. That was. The minimum number is 18,000 for Ruby, but they think it's probably about 56,000. But the minimum number is 18,000 on the Ruby Freeman night where she ran back in there when everybody was gone and stuffed, she stuffed the ballot boxes. Let's face it, Brad, I mean. They did it in slow motion replay magnified, right? She stuffed the ballot boxes. They were stuffed like nobody has ever seen them stuffed before.

So there's a term for it when it's a machine instead of a ballot box, but she stuffed the machine. She stuffed the ballot — each ballot went three times. They were showing: Here's ballot No 1, here it is a second time, a third time, next ballot.


I mean, look. Brad. We have a new tape that we're going to release. It's devastating. And by the way, that one event, that one event is much more than the 11,000 votes that we're talking about. It's uh, you know, that one event was a disaster. And it's just, you know, but it was, it was something that it can't be disputed. And again, we have a version that you haven't seen but it's magnified. It's magnified, and you can see everything. And she put, for some reason they put it in three times, each ballot, and I don't know why. I don't know why three times. Why not five times, right? Yeah, go ahead.

Raffensperger: You're talking about the State Farm video. And I think it's extremely unfortunate that Rudy Giuliani or his people, they sliced and diced that video and took it out of context. The next day we brought in WSB-TV and we let them show, see the full run of tape, and what you'll see, the events that transpired are nowhere near what was projected by, you know —


Georgia election officials shows frame-by-frame of State Farm Arena Election Night video
WSB-TV
Dec 5, 2020


Trump: But where were the poll watchers, Brad? There were no poll watchers there. There were no Democrats or Republicans. There was no security there. It was late in the evening, late in the, early in the morning, and there was nobody else in the room. Where were the poll watchers, and why did they say a water main broke, which they did, and which is reported in the newspapers? They said they left. They ran out because of a water main break. And there was no water main. There was nothing. There was no break. There was no water main break. But we're, if you take out everything, where were the Republican poll watchers? Even where were the Democrat poll watchers, because there were none?

And then you say, well, they left their station, you know, if you look at the tape, and this was, this was reviewed by professional police, and detectives, and other people, when they left in a rush, everybody left in a rush because of the water main, but everybody left in a rush. These people left their station.

When they came back, they didn't go to their station. They went to the apron, wrapped around the table, under which were thousands and thousands of ballots in a box that was not an official or a sealed box. And then they took those and they went back to a different station. So if they would have come back, they would have walked to their station, and they would have continued to work. But they couldn't do even that because that's illegal, because they had no Republican poll watchers. And remember, her reputation is devas... — she's known all over the Internet, Brad. She's known all over.

I'm telling you, "Where's Ruby?" was one of the hot items. Ruby -- they knew her. "Where's Ruby?" So Brad, you know, there can be no justification for that. And I you know, I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But that was — and Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put 'em in three times.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, they did not do that. We did an audit of that, and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.

Trump: Well, where was everybody else at that late time in the morning? Where was everybody? Where were the Republicans? Where were the security guards? Where were the people that were there just a little while before when everyone ran out of the room? How come we had no security in the room? Why did they run to the bottom of the table? Why did they run there, and just open the skirt and rip out the votes? I mean, Brad. And they were sitting there, I think for five hours or something like that, the votes. But they just all happened to run back and go, you know, Brad...

Raffensperger: Mr. President, we'll send you the link from WSB that --

Trump: I don't care about a link. I don't need it, Brad. I have a much better link —

Mitchell: I will tell you, I've seen the tape. The full tape. So has Alex. We've watched it. And what we saw, and what we've confirmed in the timing, is that they made everybody leave, we have sworn affidavits saying that. And then they began to process ballots. And our estimate is that there were roughly 18,000 ballots. We don't know that. If you know that ...

Trump: It was 18,000 ballots, but they used each one three times.

Mitchell: Well, I don't know about that, but what I do know --

Trump: I do think because we had ours magnified out. Each one magnified out is 18 times three --

Mitchell: I watched the entire tape.

Trump: But nobody can make a case for that, Brad. Nobody. I mean, look, you'd have to be a child to think anything other than that. Just a child. I mean, you have your never ...

Mitchell: How many ballots, Mr. Secretary, are you saying that were processed then?

Raffensperger: We had GBI thoroughly investigate that.

Germany: We had our — this is Ryan Germany. We had our law enforcement officers talk to everyone who was who was there after that event came to light. GBI was with them, as well as FBI agents.

Trump: Well, there's no way they could — then they're incompetent. They're either dishonest or incompetent, okay?

Mitchell: Well, what did they find?

Trump: There's only two answers, dishonesty or incompetence. There's just no way. Look, there's no way. And on the other thing, I said too, there is no way. I mean, there's no way that these things could have been, you know, you have all these different people that voted, but they don't live in Georgia anymore. What was that number, Cleta? That was a pretty good number too.

Mitchell: Well, the number who had registered out of state after they moved from Georgia, and so they had a date when they moved from Georgia, they registered to vote out of state, and then it's like 4,500, I don't have that right in front of me.

Trump: And then they came back in and they voted.

Mitchell: And voted. Yeah.

Trump: That was a large number, though. It was in the 20s. And, you know, the point is...

Germany: We've been going through each of those as well, and those numbers that we got, that Ms. Mitchell was just saying, they're not accurate. Every one we've been through are people that lived in Georgia, moved to a different state, but then moved back to Georgia legitimately. And in many cases --

Trump: How many people do that? You mean, they moved out, and then they said, "Ah, to hell with it, I'll move back in." You know, it doesn't sound like a very normal ... you mean, they moved out, and what, they missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? [Laughter] It's crazy.

Germany: This is -- they moved back in years ago. This was not like something just before the election. So there's something about that data that it's just not accurate.

Trump: Well, I don't know, all I know is that it is certified. And they moved out of Georgia and they voted. It didn't say they moved back in Cleta, did it?

Mitchell: No, but I mean, we're looking at the voter registration. Again, if you have additional records, we've been asking for that, but you haven't shared any of that with us. You just keep saying you investigated the allegations.

Trump: But, Cleta, a lot of it you don't need to be shared. I mean, to be honest, they should share it. They should share it, because you want to get to an honest election.

I won this election by hundreds of thousands of votes. There's no way I lost Georgia. There's no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes. I'm just going by small numbers, when you add them up they're many times the 11,000. But I won that state by hundreds of thousands of votes.

Now, do you think it's possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County, because that's what the rumor is? And also that Dominion took out machines? That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery? Do you know anything about that? Because that's illegal, right?

Germany: This is Ryan Germany. No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.

Trump: But have they moved the inner parts of the machines, and replaced them with other parts?

Germany: No.

Trump: Are you sure, Ryan?

Germany: I'm sure. I'm sure, Mr. President.

Trump: What about, what about the ballots? The shredding of the ballots? Have they been shredding ballots?

Germany: No. The only investigation that we have into that — they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this is stuff from, you know, from you know past elections.

Trump: I don't know. It doesn't pass the smell test though, because we hear they're shredding thousands and thousands of ballots, and now what they're saying, "Oh, we're just cleaning up the office." [Laughter] So I don't think they're cleaning.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.

Trump: No, this isn't social media. This is Trump media. It's not social media. It's really not, it's not social media. I don't care about social media. I couldn't care less. Social media is Big Tech. Big Tech is on your side. I don't even know why you have a side, because you should want to have an accurate election. And you're a Republican.

Raffensperger: We believe that we do have an accurate election.

Trump: No, no you don't. No, no you don't. You don't have. You don't have. Not even close. You're off by hundreds of thousands of votes. And just on the small numbers, you're off on these numbers, and these numbers can't be just — well, why wont? — Okay.

So you sent us into Cobb County for signature verification, right? You sent us into Cobb County, which we didn't want to go into. And you said it would be open to the public. And we could have our -- So we had our experts there; they weren't allowed into the room. But we didn't want Cobb County. We wanted Fulton County. And you wouldn't give it to us. Now, why aren't we doing signature — and why can't it be open to the public? And why can't we have professionals do it instead of rank amateurs who will never find anything, and don't want to find anything? They don't want to find, you know, they don't want to find anything. Someday you'll tell me the reason why, because I don't understand your reasoning, but someday you'll tell me the reason why. But why don't you want to find?

Germany: Mr. President, we chose Cobb County —

Trump: Why don't you want to find ... What?

Germany: Sorry, go ahead.

Trump: So why did you do Cobb County? We didn't even request — we requested Fulton County, not Cobb County. Yeah, go ahead please. Go ahead.

Germany: We chose Cobb County because that was the only county where there's been any evidence submitted that the signature verification was not properly done.

Trump: No, but I told you. We're not, we're not saying that.

Mitchell: We did say that. We did say that.

Trump: Fulton County. Look. Stacey, in my opinion, Stacey is as dishonest as they come. She has outplayed you at everything. She got you to sign a totally unconstitutional agreement, which is a disastrous agreement. You can't check signatures. You can't do -- I can't imagine, you're allowed to do harvesting, I guess, in that agreement. That agreement is a disaster for this country. But she got you somehow to sign that thing, and she has outsmarted you at every step.

And I hate to imagine what's going to happen on Monday or Tuesday, but it's very scary to people. You know, where the ballots flow in out of nowhere. It's very scary to people. That consent decree is a disaster. It's a disaster. A very good lawyer who examined it said they've never seen anything like it.

Raffensperger: Harvesting is still illegal in the state of Georgia. And that settlement agreement did not change that one iota.

Trump: It's not a settlement agreement, it's a consent decree. It even says consent decree on it, doesn't it? It uses the term consent decree. It doesn't say settlement agree. It's a consent decree. It's a disaster.

Raffensperger: It's a settlement agreement.

Trump: What's written on top of it?

Raffensperger: Ryan?

Germany: I don't have it in front of me, but it was not entered by the court, it's not a court order.

Trump: But Ryan, it's called a consent decree, is that right? On the paper. Is that right?

Germany: I don't, I don't, I don't believe so, but I don't have it in front of me.

Trump: OK, whatever, it's a disaster. It's a disaster. Look. Here's the problem. We can go through signature verification, and we'll find hundreds of thousands of signatures, if you let us do it. And the only way you can do it, as you know, is to go to the past. But you didn't do that in Cobb County. You just looked at one page compared to another. The only way you can do a signature verification is go from the one that signed it on November whatever -- recently -- and compare it to two years ago, four years ago, six years ago, you know, or even one. And you'll find that you have many different signatures. But in Fulton, where they dumped ballots, you will find that you have many that aren't even signed, and you have many that are forgeries.

OK, you know that. You know that. You have no doubt about that. And you will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes, because Fulton County is totally corrupt, and so is she, totally corrupt.

And they're going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad, whether you know it or not, they're laughing at you, and you've taken a state that's a Republican state, and you've made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating, because they cheated like nobody's ever cheated before. And I don't care how long it takes me, you know, we're going to have other states coming forward — pretty good.

But I won't -- this is never given -- this is -- We have some incredible talent said they've never seen anything -- Now the problem is they need more time for the big numbers. But they're very substantial numbers. But I think you're going to find that they — by the way, a little information, I think you're going to find that they are shredding ballots, because they have to get rid of the ballots because the ballots are unsigned. The ballots are corrupt, and they're brand new, and they don't have seals, and there's the whole thing with the ballots. But the ballots are corrupt.

And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did, and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal, that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that's a big risk. But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what I've heard. And they are removing machinery, and they're moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal fines. And you can't let it happen, and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I'm notifying you that you're letting it happen.

So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, cause you know, this is — it's a testament that they can admit to a mistake, or whatever you want to call it. If it was a mistake, I don't know. A lot of people think it wasn't a mistake; it was much more criminal than that. But it's a big problem in Georgia, and it's not a problem that's going away. I mean, you know, it's not a problem that's going away.

Germany: M.r President, this is Ryan. We're looking into every one of those things that you mentioned. And our investigators --

Trump: Good. But if you find it, you've got to say it, Ryan. Look, let me, Ryan, Ryan -- Go ahead.

Germany: Let me tell you what we are seeing. What we're seeing is not at all what you're describing. These are investigators from our office, these are investigators from GBI, and they're looking and they're good. And that's not what they're seeing. And we'll keep looking, we'll keep looking at all these things.

Trump: Well, you better check on the ballot,s because they are shredding ballots, Ryan. I'm just telling you, Ryan. They're shredding ballots. And you should look at that very carefully. Because that's so illegal. You know, you may not even believe it because it's so bad. But they're shredding ballots because they think we're going to eventually get there, because we'll eventually get into Fulton. You know, in my opinion it's never too late --

So, that's the story, fellas. Look, we need only 11,000 votes. We have far more than that as it stands now. We'll have more and more. And do you have provisional ballots at all, Brad? Provisional ballots?

Raffensperger: Provisional ballots are allowed by state law.

Trump: Sure, but you have them, I mean, are they counted, or did you just hold them back because they, you know, in other words, how many provisional ballots do you have in the state?

Raffensperger: We'll get you that number.

Trump: Because most of them are made out to the name Trump. Because these are people that were scammed when they came in. And we have thousands of people that have testified, or that want to testify, when they came in they were proudly going to vote on November 3. And they were told, "I'm sorry, you've already been voted for, you've already voted." The women, men started screaming, "No. I proudly voted til November 3." They said, "I'm sorry, but you've already been voted for, and you have a ballot." And these people are beside themselves. So they went out and they filled in a provisional ballot, putting the name Trump on it.

And what about that batch of military ballots that came in? And even though I won the military by a lot, it was 100 percent Trump -- I mean 100 percent Biden. Do you know about that? A large group of ballots came in -- I think it was to Fulton County -- and they just happened to be 100 percent for Trump, even though — for Biden -- even though Trump won the military by a lot, you know, a tremendous amount. But these ballots were 100 percent for Biden. And do you know about that? A very substantial number came in, all for Biden. Does anybody know about it?

Mitchell: I know about it, but —

Trump: OK, Cleta, I'm not asking you Cleta, honestly. I'm asking Brad. Do you know about the military ballots that we have confirmed now? Do you know about the military ballots that came in that were 100 percent, I mean 100 percent for Biden? Do you know about that?

Germany: I don't know about that. I do know that we have when military ballots come in, it's not just military, it's also military and overseas citizens. The military part of that does generally go Republican. The overseas citizen part of it generally goes very Democrat. This was a mix of 'em.

Trump: No, but this was. That's OK. But I got like 78 percent in the military. These ballots were all for -- They didn't tell me overseas. Could be overseas too, but I get votes overseas too, Ryan, you know, in all fairness. No, they came in, a large batch came in, and it was, quote, 100 percent for Biden. And that is criminal. You know, that's criminal, OK? That's another criminal, that's another of the many criminal events, many criminal events here.

Oh, I don't know, look Brad. I got to get, I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state. That's before we go to the next step, which is in the process of right now. You know, and I watched you this morning and you said, uh, well, there was no criminality. But I mean, all of this stuff is very dangerous stuff. When you talk about no criminality, I think it's very dangerous for you to say that.

I just, I just don't know why you don't want to have the votes counted as they are. Like even you when you went and did that check. And I was surprised because, you know, the check, and we found a few thousand votes that were against me. I was actually surprised, because the way that check was done, all you're doing is, you know, recertifying existing votes and, you know, and you were given votes and you just counted them up, and you still found 3,000 that were bad. So that was sort of surprising that it came down to three or five, I don't know, still a lot of votes. But you have to go back to check from past years with respect to signatures. And if you check with Fulton County, you'll have hundreds of thousands, because they dumped ballots into Fulton County, and the other county next to it.

So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. You know, we have that in spades already. Or we can keep it going, but that's not fair to the voters of Georgia, because they're going to see what happened, and they're going to see what happened. I mean, I'll, I'll take on anybody you want with regard to Ruby Freeman and her lovely daughter, a very lovely young lady, I'm sure. But, but Ruby Freeman, I will take Freeman, I will take on anybody you want. And the minimum, there were 18,000 ballots, but they used them three times. So that's, you know, a lot of votes. And that one event, and they were all to Biden, by the way. That's the other thing we didn't say. You know, the Ruby Freeman, the one thing I forgot to say, which was the most important, you know that every single ballot she did went to Biden? You know that, right? Do you know that, by the way, Brad? Every single ballot that she did through the machine at early, early in the morning, went to Biden. Did you know that, Ryan?

Germany: That's not accurate, Mr. President.

Trump: Huh. What is accurate?

Germany: The numbers that we are showing are accurate.

Trump: No, about Ruby Freeman. About early in the morning, Ryan. When the woman took, you know, when the whole gang took the stuff out from under the table, right? Do you know, do you know who those ballots, who they were made out to? Do you know who they were voting for?

Germany: No, not specifically.

Trump: Did you ever check?

Germany: We did what I described to you earlier —

Trump: No no no — did you ever check the ballots that were scammed by Ruby Freeman, a known political operative balloteer? Did ever check who those votes were for?

Germany: We looked into that situation that you described.

Trump: No, they were 100 percent for Biden. 100 percent. There wasn't a Trump vote in the whole group. Why don't you want to find this, Ryan? What's wrong with you? I heard your lawyer is very difficult, actually, but I'm sure you're a good lawyer. You have a nice last name. But, but I'm just curious why wouldn't, why do you keep fighting this thing? It just doesn't make sense. We're way over the 17,779, right? We're way over that number. And just if you took just Ruby Freeman, we're over that number by five, five or six times when you multiply that times three.

And every single ballot went to Biden. And you didn't know that, but, now you know it. So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it's not fair to take it away from us like this. And it's going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you're going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people that don't want to find answers. For instance, I'm hearing Ryan, and he's probably I'm sure a great lawyer and everything. But he's making statements about those ballots that he doesn't know. But he's making them with such — he did make them with surety. But now I think he's less sure, because the answer is they all went to Biden, and that alone wins us the election by a lot. You know so.

Raffensperger: Mr. President, you have people that submit information, and we have our people that submit information. And then it comes before the court, and the court then has to make a determination. We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.

Trump: Why do you say that, though? I don't know. I mean, sure, we can play this game with the courts, but why do you say that? First of all they don't even assign us a judge. They don't even assign us a judge. But why wouldn't you — Hey Brad, why wouldn't you want to check out Ruby Freeman? And why wouldn't you want to say, "Hey, if in fact, President Trump is right about that, then he wins the state of Georgia, just that one incident alone without going through hundreds of thousands of dropped ballots." You just say, you stick by -- I mean, I've been watching you for, you know, you don't care about anything. "Your numbers are right." But your numbers aren't right. They're really wrong, and they're really wrong, Brad. And I know this phone call is going nowhere other than, other than ultimately, you know — Look ultimately, I win, okay?


Mitchell: Mr. Secretary...

Trump: Because you guys are so wrong. And you treated this, you treated the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who was down at 21 -- he was down 21 points. And like a schmuck, I endorsed him, and he got elected. But I will tell you, he is a disaster. And he'll never, I can't imagine the people are so angry in Georgia, I can't imagine he's ever getting elected again! I'll tell you that much right now. But why wouldn't you want to find the right answer, Brad, instead of keep saying that the numbers are right? Cause those numbers are so wrong.

Mitchell: Mr. Secretary, Mr. President, one of the things that we have been, Alex can talk about this, we talked about it, and I don't know whether the information has been conveyed to your office, but I think what the president is saying, and what we've been trying to do is to say, look, the court is not acting on our petition. They haven't even assigned a judge. But the people of Georgia, and the people of America, have a right to know the answers. And you have data and records that we don't have access to. And you keep telling us, and making public statements, that you investigated this, and you know, nothing to see here. But we don't know about that. All we know is what you tell us. What I don't understand is why wouldn't it be in everyone's best interest to try to get to the bottom, compare the numbers, you know, if you say, because -- to try to be able to get to the truth, because we don't have any way of confirming what you're telling us. You tell us that you've had an investigation at the State Farm Arena. I don't have any report. I've never seen a report of investigation. I don't know that is. I've been pretty involved in this, and I don't know. And that's just one of like 25 categories. And it doesn't even, and as I, as the president said, we haven't even gotten into the Dominion issue. That's not part of our case. It's not part of, we just didn't feel as though we had any way to be able to develop —

Trump: No, we do have a way, but I don't want to get into it. We found a way in other states -- excuse me, but we don't need it, because we're only down 11,000 votes, so we don't even need it. I personally think they're corrupt as hell. But we don't need that. Because all we have to do, Cleta, is find 11,000-plus votes. So we don't need that. I'm not looking to shake up the whole world. We won Georgia easily. We won it by hundreds of thousands of votes. But if you go by basic simple numbers, we won it easily, easily. So we're not giving Dominion a pass on the record.

Mitchell: Right, right, exactly.

[Trump] We just, we don't need Dominion, because we have so many other votes, that we don't need to prove it any more than we already have.

Hilbert: Mr. President and Cleta, this is Kurt Hilbert, if I might interject here for a moment. Um Ryan, I would like to suggest that just four categories that have already been mentioned by the president that have actually hard numbers of 24,149 votes that were counted illegally. That in and of itself is sufficient to change the results, or place the outcome in doubt. We would like to just sit down with your office, and we can do it through purposes of compromise and settlement just like this phone call, just to deal with that limited category of votes. And if you are able to establish that our numbers are not accurate, then fine. However, we believe that they are accurate. We've had now three to four separate experts look at these numbers. These numbers are based upon the US ---

Trump: And certified accountants looked at them.

Hilbert: Correct. And this is just based on USPS data and your own secretary of state data. So that's what we would entreat and ask you to do, to sit down with us in a compromise and settlement proceeding, and actually go through the registered voter IDs and registrations. And if you can convince us that that 24,149 is inaccurate, then fine. But we tend to believe that that is, you know, obviously more than 11,779. That's sufficient to change the results entirely in and of itself. So what would you say to that, Mr. Germany?

Germany: Kurt, um I'm happy to get with our lawyers, and we'll set that up. That number is not accurate. And I think we can show you, for all the ones we've looked at, why it's not. And so if that would be helpful, I'm happy to get with our lawyers and set that up with you guys.

Trump: Well, let me ask you, Kurt, you think that is an accurate number. That was based on the information given to you by the secretary of state's department, right?

Hilbert: That is correct. That information is the minimum most conservative data based upon the USPS data and the secretary of state's office data that has been made publicly available. We do not have the internal numbers from the secretary of state. Yet, we have asked for it six times. I sent a letter over to Mr... several times requesting this information, and it's been rebuffed every single time. So it stands to reason that if the information is not forthcoming, there's something to hide. That's the problem that we have.

Germany: Well, that's not the case sir. There's things that you guys are entitled to get, and there's things that under the law, we are not allowed to give out.

Trump: Well, you have to. Well, under law you're not allowed to give faulty election results, OK? You're not allowed to do that. And that's what you done. This is a faulty election result. And honestly, this should go very fast. You should meet tomorrow, because you have a big election coming up ,and because of what you've done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam. And because of what you've done to the president, a lot of people aren't going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president. Okay? They hate it. And they're going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this thing could be straightened out before the election. You have a big election coming up on Tuesday, and therefore I think that it is really important that you meet tomorrow and work out on these numbers. Because I know Brad that if you think we're right, I think you're going to say, and I'm not looking to blame anybody. I'm just saying you know, and you know under new counts, and under uh, new views of the election results, we won the election. You know? It's very simple. We won the election. As the governors of major states and the surrounding states said, there is no way you lost Georgia. As the Georgia politicians say, there is no way, you lost Georgia. Nobody. Everyone knows I won it by hundreds of thousands of votes. But I'll tell you, it's going to have a big impact on Tuesday if you guys don't get this thing straightened out fast.

Meadows: Well, Mr. President, this is Mark. Let me just -- It sounds like we've got two different sides agreeing that we can look at those areas, and I assume that we can do that within the next 24 to 48 hours to go ahead and get that reconciled so that we can look at the two claims, and making sure that we get the access to the secretary of state's data to either validate or invalidate the claims that have been made. Is that correct?

Germany: No, that's not what I said. I'm happy to have our lawyers sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and explain to him, "Hey, here's, based on what we've looked at so far, here's how we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong."

Meadows: So what you're saying, Ryan, hold on, let me, let me make sure -- so what you're saying is you really don't want to give access to the data? You just want to make another case on why the lawsuit is wrong?

Germany: I don't think we can give access to data that's protected by law. But we can sit down with them and say —

Trump: But you're allowed to have a phony election? You're allowed to have a phony election right?

Germany: No sir.

Trump: When are you going to do the signature counts? When are you going to do signature verification on Fulton County, which you said you were going to do, and now all of a sudden you're not doing it. When are you doing that?

Germany: We are going to do that. We've announced —

Hilbert: To get to this issue of the personal information and privacy issue, is it possible that the secretary of state could deputize the lawyers for the president, so that we could access that information and private information without you having any kind of violation?

Trump: Well, I don't want to know who it is. You guys can do it very confidentially. You can sign a confidentiality agreement. That's OK. I don't need to know names. But we got the information on this stuff that we're talking about. We got all that information from the secretary of state.

Meadows: Yeah. So let me, let me recommend, Ryan, if you and Kurt will get together, you know, when we get off of this phone call, if you could get together and work out a plan to address some of what we've got with your attorneys, where we can we can actually look at the data. For example, Mr. Secretary, I can tell you say there were only two dead people who would vote. I can promise you there were more than that. And that may be what your investigation shows, but I can promise you there were more than that. But at the same time, I think it's important that we go ahead and move expeditiously to try to do this, and resolve it as quickly as we possibly can. And if that's the good next step, hopefully we can, we can finish this phone call, and go ahead and agree that the two of you will get together immediately.

Trump: Well why don't my lawyers show you where you got the information. It will show the secretary of state, and you don't even have to look at any names. We don't want names. We don't care. But we got that information from you. And Stacey Abrams is laughing about -- you know she's going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock? What she's done to this party is unbelievable, I tell ya. And I only ran against her once. And that was with a guy named Brian Kemp. And I beat her. And if I didn't run, Brian wouldn't have had even a shot, either in the general or in the primary. He was dead, dead as a doornail. He never thought he had a shot at either one of them. What a schmuck I was. But that's the way it is. That's the way it is.

I would like you to, for the attorneys, I'd like you to perhaps meet with Ryan ideally tomorrow, because I think we should come to a resolution of this before the election. Otherwise you're going to have people just not voting. They don't want to vote. They hate the state; they hate the governor; and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. And the only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that Brad, right? They like you, you know, they like you. They can't believe what they found. They want more people like you.

So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And Brad. We just want the truth. It's simple. And everyone's going to look very good if the truth comes out. It's OK. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And the real truth is I won by 400,000 votes at least. That's the real truth. But we don't need 400,000 votes. We need less than 2,000 votes. And are you guys able to meet tomorrow Ryan?

Germany: Um, I'll get with Chris, the lawyer who is representing us in the case, and see when he can get together with Kurt.

Raffensperger: Ryan will be in touch with the other attorney on this call, Mr. Meadows. Thank you President Trump for your time.

Trump: OK, thank you, Brad. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Bye.
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:16 am

The Rising Danger of Stochastic Terrorism: It takes a master demagogue to weaponize unstable individuals and aim them at political enemies.
by Wired
January 21, 2019

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Stochastic Terrorism: N. Acts of violence by random extremists, triggered by political demagoguery.


When President Trump tweeted a video of himself body-slamming the CNN logo in 2017, most ­people took it as a stupid joke. For Cesar Sayoc, it may have been a call to arms: Last October the avowed Trump fan allegedly mailed a pipe bomb to CNN headquarters.

No one told Sayoc to do it, but the fact that it happened was really no surprise. In 2011, after the shooting of US representative Gabby Giffords, a Daily Kos blog warned of a new threat the writer called stochastic terrorism: the use of mass media to incite attacks by random nut jobs—acts that are “statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.” The writer had in mind right-wing radio and TV agitators, but in 2016, Rolling Stone accused then-candidate Trump of using the same playbook when he joked that “Second Amendment people” might “do” something if Hillary Clinton won the election.

Of course, Trump’s people later said he meant they might … “vote.” That’s how it works: Stochastic terrorism lets bullies operate in the open with full deniability, since the random element erases any provable causation.

Tellingly, the word stochastic comes from the Greek stochastikos, meaning “proceeding by guesswork” and “skillful in aiming.” Both are apt here. It takes a master demagogue to weaponize unstable individuals and aim them at political enemies.
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:23 am

National Security Experts Warn Trump “Is Promoting Terrorism”: The president’s post-election incitement expands on a tactic he has long used: stochastic terrorism.
by Mark Follman
National Affairs Editor
Mother Jones
December 17, 2020

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Image
A person in a gas mask protests Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic policies at the Michigan State Capitol in May 2020Paul Sancya/AP

In the waning days of his presidency, Donald Trump is engaged in a deliberate campaign of terrorism aimed at Americans who oppose him politically. That description of his actions is neither a metaphor nor hyperbole—it is the assessment of veteran national security experts, whose view of the political violence being stoked by the outgoing president is echoed by law enforcement and political leaders. As Trump has pushed a litany of lies and conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him through “massive fraud,” he has stirred his most extreme supporters to menace public officials, election workers, and his Democratic and Republican critics alike. Over the past four years, numerous perpetrators of threats and violence have directly invoked the president and his rhetoric, and recent gatherings by far-right groups in support of Trump’s efforts to reverse his election defeat have led to beatings, stabbings and a shooting.

Trump is using a tactic known as “stochastic terrorism,” says Juliette Kayyem, a national security expert and former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. It’s a method of political incitement that provokes random acts of extremist violence, in which the instigator uses rhetoric ambiguous enough to give himself and his allies plausible deniability for any resulting bloodshed. Violent threats or attacks linked to the rhetoric usually generate muted denials and equivocal denunciations, or claims to have been “joking,” as Trump and those speaking on his behalf have routinely hidden behind.

Previously discussed in obscurity among counterterrorism specialists and national security wonks, the concept of stochastic terrorism first drew wider attention in 2018 when Kayyem cited it in reference to Cesar Sayoc, a fervent Trump supporter who sent mail bombs to CNN and nearly a dozen Democratic figures, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. Since then—and particularly since Trump’s defeat in November—the president’s willingness to encourage violence for political purposes has become only more evident, according to Kayyem. She says Trump’s behavior should be called out for what it is: “He is promoting terrorism.”


Among national security experts, Kayyem is not alone in this view. “It really matters that the president of the United States is an arsonist of radicalization,” said Kori Schake, who served in leadership posts at the National Security Council and State Department under President George W. Bush. “It will really help when that’s no longer the case,” she added, speaking in a recent online panel discussion about the danger fueled by Trump and his enablers.

“We are stuck parsing Trump’s words…Meanwhile his supporters know EXACTLY what he means.”


Elizabeth Neumann, who until early 2020 served as a DHS assistant secretary focused on counterterrorism and threat prevention, asserted in a Washington Post op-ed before the election that the president has been fomenting violence. “Language from campaign materials and Trump’s extemporaneous speeches at rallies have been used as justification for acts of violence,” she wrote, emphasizing that Trump “has repeatedly been confronted with this fact.” His “inconsistent and muddied” denouncements of violence and white supremacists, she said, only exacerbated the problem: “Extremists thrive on this mixed messaging, interpreting it as coded support.”

Trump has long pursued a campaign of incitement with impunity, unchallenged by Republican leaders in Congress and met with tepid press coverage. “Until recently mainstream media were unwilling to say explicitly that Trump was lying,” Kayyem notes. “In the same way, there is a reluctance to identify the kind of violence that Trump is propagating, maybe because it seems too close to calling him a terrorist. You can call him whatever you want, but the tactics he’s using are clearly a form of terrorism.”

Trump’s nods and winks to far-right extremists began with his 2016 campaign and came to a head in August 2017 when he suggested that the torch-wielding white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, included some “very fine people.” His demagoguery as president was initially focused on “the other,” whether it was his attempt to ban Muslims from entering the United States or his incendiary rhetoric about Mexican “rapists,” migrant caravans, and “shithole” countries. He also attacked the news media as “the enemy of the people,” sparking violent threats and plots against journalists. “What’s happened now is that he has clearly turned it against Americans,” Kayyem says. “He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is focused on American political leadership that is not behind him.”

The danger escalated in the spring when Trump urged supporters to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” in response to public health restrictions ordered by the state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, for battling the coronavirus pandemic. Trump targeted the governors of Virginia and Minnesota with the same message and sided with armed protesters in Michigan while tweeting criticism of Whitmer: “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely!” By early October, the FBI and state authorities announced they had arrested 13 people plotting violent attacks in Michigan and elsewhere, including plans to storm the Capitol and kidnap and execute Whitmer. Far-right extremists also allegedly targeted Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, whom Trump had blasted as “crazy” for his pandemic policies and for supposedly planning to take away Virginians’ guns. When pressed in a fall presidential debate to denounce the violent far-right group known as the Proud Boys, Trump infamously responded that they should “stand back and stand by.”

Trump’s post-election incitement has manifested in new and alarming ways. By early December, after the president unleashed a wave of false claims attacking the election results in battleground states including Michigan, a group of armed Trump supporters gathered outside the home of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as she and her young son were putting up Christmas decorations. They chanted “Stop the steal” and shouted “You’re a felon and must turn yourself in immediately.” Less prominent officials and election workers around the country have been harassed for doing their jobs processing votes, menaced with nooses and death threats, and stalked online or at their homes. On December 14, state electors faced with “credible threats” in Michigan and Arizona were compelled to take extraordinary security measures—including locking down buildings and meeting at an undisclosed location—as they convened to certify Biden’s presidential victory.

Kayyem reiterated in a series of tweets how Trump had perfected the technique of provoking random but predictable violence. “We are stuck parsing Trump’s words, forced into textualist debates about what he meant by ‘Liberate Michigan’ or ‘Stand Back and Stand By,'” she wrote. “Meanwhile his supporters know EXACTLY what he means.”

“The level of concern is about as high as I’ve ever seen it,” a senior federal law enforcement official told me in early December.
“Threatening activity based in this kind of rhetoric or anger is always there, but that said, it has been a very active year and it’s kept us and our [state and local] counterparts very busy.” The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to offer any specific assessment of the president’s role in provoking violence, but acknowledged in broader terms that the post-election conspiracy mongering led by Trump “is undoubtedly big fuel on the fire.”

“This is a really dangerous and cynical attempt to whip up a base for what comes next.”


The president’s tactics have been imitated by his operatives and political allies. Recent comments from Trump campaign lawyer Joseph DiGenova were a textbook example: After the president fired DHS cybersecurity director Chris Krebs, who had described the 2020 elections as the most secure in history, DiGenova said in an interview that Krebs should be “taken out at dawn and shot.” DiGenova later claimed his comments “were sarcastic and made in jest.” As electors in Arizona prepared to certify Biden’s win, state Sen.-elect Wendy Rogers, a backer of Trump’s false claims about the election, tweeted: “Buy more ammo.” When Arizona Democrats criticized Rogers for using incendiary language on such a consequential day, she tweeted repeatedly that she was simply cheerleading for Second Amendment rights. “She knows exactly what she’s doing & wants plausible deniability,” responded Rep. Jennifer Longdon, an assistant Democratic leader in the Arizona House. Longdon’s tweet described Rogers’ own as a “clarion call to lone wolf extremists.”

Longdon, a gun violence survivor, knows well the danger of fringe actors who go on the attack over a political cause, including those who threatened, stalked, and assaulted her over her work on gun safety. Trump’s allies, she says, “have ramped this up to a level that’s beyond irresponsible.” If violence follows, Rogers and others “will just shrug their shoulders and walk away from it. But someone is hearing that call, and that call is coming from someone they consider to be a responsible voice of leadership.” Longdon added that the targeting of conservative Republican state officeholders who deemed Arizona’s election results fair and credible was telling. “This is a really dangerous and cynical attempt to whip up a base for what comes next,” she says. “At what point does this become sedition?”


Both Kayyem and the federal law enforcement official I spoke with suggested that recent commentary about the possibility of a brewing “civil war” has been overblown. They said that fringe elements who would act violently remain small in number. Kayyem also sees the coming change at the White House as pivotal. “We’ve gotten pretty immune to the sort of everyday racism of the current president and how he has nurtured it from the top,” she says. “But I think Biden will be able in his way to shame that, and a lot of it will start to go away. There will still be a threat of violence, but it’s not existential. I think we’ll see that when nonracists control the levers of law enforcement and communications, that these fringe groups will find themselves adrift and more isolated again.”
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Tue Jan 05, 2021 6:08 am

Georgia official fires back at Trump's election conspiracies
by Gabriel Sterling
Jan 4, 2021



Gabriel Sterling, the Republican in charge of Georgia's voting system, pleaded with Georgians to go out and vote in the Senate run off while also debunking each of President Trump's and his supporters baseless election claims.

TRANSCRIPT:

[Gabriel Sterling] What we’ve seen also is a difference in the turnout models depending on congressional district and county in the state so far, in large part driven by the continuing misinformation and disinformation concerning the value of people’s votes in this state. The Secretary wants me to make clear that everybody’s vote is going to count; everybody’s vote DID count. I want to make that abundantly clear. If you care about the values and the direction of the nation you want to see, it is your OBLIGATION to turn out and vote tomorrow, whether you are Democrat or Republicans. However, given right now the nature of the President’s statements, and several other people who have been aligned with him previously, literally at a rally saying “Protest and Don’t Vote,” we are specifically asking you, and telling you, “Please turn out and vote tomorrow.”

One of the things specifically I’ve had to argue with people whom I’ve known for 20 years, they say, “Well, we believe our election was stolen; we feel like our votes don’t count,” and I said, “Okay, I’m not acknowledging that the election was stolen, because it wasn’t; I’m not acknowledging that there was massive voter fraud because there wasn’t,” but I said, “If you believe in your heart of hearts that there was, the best thing for you to do is to turn out and vote and make it harder for them to steal. If that’s what you genuinely in your heart of hearts believe, turn out and vote. There are people who fought and died and marched and prayed and voted to get the right to vote. Throwing it away because you have some FEELING that it may not matter, is self-destructive ultimately, and a self-fulfilling prophecy in the end. So everybody who cares about the future of this nation should turn out and vote. It’s vitally important. It’s absolutely important. ”

And the reason I’m having to stand here today is because there are people in positions of authority and respect who have said their votes didn’t count, and it’s not true. And I’m going to do it again, and I’m going to go through all of this Anti-Disinformation Monday. It’s whack a mole again, it is groundhog day again, I’m going to get to talk about things that I’ve talked about repeatedly for two months. But I’m going to do it again one last time, I’m hoping. Because at the end of the day, we want to be sure that people understand their votes count. Every person, every voice matters. And I know there are people who have fought for that for years about this.

So let’s start again, and yes, some of this is going to come out of the continuing statements from the President and some of his supporters.

1. State Farm. [Sigh] This has been one that has been conflated over several different things. We have (a) multiple scanned ballots; (b) we have Ruby Freeman; (c) we have the leak, they say “the water main break”, which wasn’t a water main break. So, in order to be fully transparent, one of the things we did, we had a local media organization, WSB, Justin over here, we went through it for hours and hours, walked through frame by frame, and showed what happened.

So let’s start. If you go to securevotega.com, we have posted all of the videos from State Farm for that day, that cover the relevant periods. 5:23 a.m. they walk in, and they discover what is essentially a pond on the floor, where you can see water coming out of the sky. So they say, “Okay, we can’t do our work here this morning.” They call in the State Farm people – it’s NOT Fulton County people, which is one of the other things they said, there is not Fulton County work order to fix the water leak because guess what? It wasn’t in a Fulton County facility, it was in State Farm. So they were the ones who fixed the leak. And it was a urinal that overflowed, because it was turned off, because guess what? No one is in State Farm because of COVID other than this particular usage. So they turned off all of these things, and it went over the edge of the relief valve, and that’s what caused the leak. So they come in.

Then you go to about 7:00 in the morning, or so where you have essentially the – I don’t know what to call it – “the drying zamboni” driving around on the carpet cleaning it all up.

Then about 8:23, you see a woman bringing in the “table in question” which has been the point of Mr. Giuliani’s 90-second clip. She’s pulling it with one hand, and she sets it down, and there is nothing underneath it. Okay?

Then you can fast-forward to later in the day, about 9:45 or so. Everybody there – there are two groups of people there, there are cutters and there are scanners. What happens is the cutters began putting their stuff away because everybody is under the impression that they were going to go home. We have discovered this. So they start putting covers over the cutting machines and everything. So then we see also, while the monitors and the press are still in the room, they bring out the carriers, which are NORMAL absentee ballot carriers, and I will admit, when I listened to the audio of the phone call, and the President brought it up again, and I heard it on the radio again today, I wanted to scream – well, I did scream to the computer, and I screamed in my car at the radio talking about this, because this has been thoroughly debunked. They bring out the normal absentee ballot carriers, there are monitors in the room, there is press in the room. They take the ballots that have been opened, put them in carrier trays, they put them in there, and then put them in the boxes, put the lid on, and the lid matches the box, and then you see at one point during the video, a woman crawling on the floor, putting the numbered seals on them so that can keep the chain of custody.

At approximately 10:25, 10:30, the Secretary in our office receives word that Fulton County is shutting down for the night ahead of the State Farm arena. So, as some of you who were there on election night recall, the Secretary got a little irritated with this, and made his feelings quite known. he said, “Some of us are working through the night, we’re glad to see that Fulton County sees the need to just go ahead and knock off for the evening.” So Chris Harvey, our Elections Director, then calls Rick Baron, the Election Director of Fulton County, who was at the other location, which was their [inaudible] warehouse, because he was doing election day activities. So Chris calls Rick. Rick ways, “We’re not shutting down.” Then Chris says, “Looks like you are.” So then you can go back to the video tape and see Ralph Jones take a phone call at approximately almost 11:00, and you can see his shoulders kind of shrug. He takes the phone call. He’s being told, at this point, by his boss Rick Baron, “You need to stay and continue to scan.” So he hangs up the phone, he goes over to some boxes, he puts some more seals on them because obviously, if you watch the videotape, many of the people who are there have been there since 7:00 in the morning, and now it’s already 11:00 at night. They are all under the impression they are going to get to go home. So you see him spend about 30 seconds going, “Heck, what am I going to say to these people?” So he walks back over to the corner of a desk and says, “I got the word we gotta keep on scanning.” So they go back to the boxes that you see them put under the table at the approximately 10:00 hour. There is videotape of this.

AND THIS IS WHAT IS REALLY FRUSTRATING. THE PRESIDENT’S LEGAL TEAM HAD THE ENTIRE TAPE, THEY WATCHED THE ENTIRE TAPE, AND THEN FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW, INTENTIONALLY MISLED THE STATE SENATE, THE VOTERS, AND THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES ABOUT THIS. IT WAS INTENTIONAL; IT WAS OBVIOUS; AND ANYBODY WATCHING THIS KNOWS THAT. ANYONE WATCHING IT KNOWS THAT. That’s why we released the entire tape for people to watch. So they pull those out and begin to scan.

Then the other claim comes about a woman named Ruby Freeman, and multiple scanning. One of the things you need to understand is that it is a normal ballot processing that if there is a problem with a ballot, what it does is it stops. But before that, four or five will get through. So they say, delete that last batch and rescan it so it scans properly. That is the NORMAL process that is done.

Secondarily to that, everybody might be familiar with the fact the President wanted us to do a hand-recount, a hand retally, which we ended up doing under our audit. That audit showed that there was NO PROBLEM WITH THE MACHINE SCANNING. If somebody took a stack of ballots and scanned them multiple times, you would have a lot of votes with no corresponding ballots. So let’s go over the numbers one more time. Statewide, for the sheer number of ballots, they were off by .1053%. For the margin they were off by .0099%. Which shows that the machine scanned properly, our counties did a great job of following these batches, and doing the hand-count properly, appropriately, with scrutiny and with observers. So let’s put that to bed right now.

And one of the other things we did as part of our transparency is we have put all of those tally sheets online, for every county, so you can go through them and look at them all. And again, it’s at securevotega.com.

Let’s go over the numbers that the President’s team is claiming. We have a little chart over here. They are claiming there were 2,056 felons that voted. Our research, and we have better data, because we are directly tied to the state government on this, the Department of Corrections, and the head of the department, and I can’t remember what it’s called right now, but basically it tracks when people are on probation. There we go. We know exactly how many people voted for this because we have an outward bound of 74 POTENTIAL people who are felons voted. What that means is, that’s the biggest number it could be. We will investigate and find that some of these people completed their sentences; some of these people have the same name and birth date, so there’s some cross-over there. So 74 is the outward bound. It’s going to be lower than that. So let’s be clear about that.

Then there is the claim that 66,248 people below the age of 18 voted. The actual number is ZERO. Let me be clear: 66,000 VS. ZERO. And the reason that we know that is because the dates are on the voter registration. There are four cases, FOUR, where people requested their absentee ballot before they turned 18, but they turned 18 by election day. That means that is a legally cast ballot. So again, 66,000, which is the biggest single number they have, versus zero.

They say there is 2,423 people who voted without being registered. Let’s just be clear about this: YOU CAN’T DO IT! There cannot be a ballot issued to you; there’s no way to tie back to you; there’s nowhere to have a name to correspond back to unless they are a registered voter. So that number is ZERO.

Then we’ve got 1,043 illegally voted using a P.O. box. Again, when we’re going through the investigation of this, so far, every one we’ve seen has been where there’s a mailbox, etcetera, something like that, in a multi-family building, like an apartment. So you’ll have what look like P.O. boxes listed in the system, but actually there are residential addresses of record for people who live in multi-family housing, like apartments. So that’s everything we’ve seen so far. We haven’t seen anybody actually registering to vote at a USPS P.O. box.

The next one is 4,926 voted past the legal registration deadline. Again, it’s ZERO. We have ZERO record of anyone doing that because the voter registration cutoff is the voter registration cutoff. So there’s no corresponding way to do that. They couldn’t be issued a ballot because they are not legally within the system of that to have ballots issued.

10,315 who died before the election. Again, our information from the Department of Auto records we go through, county by county, shows POTENTIALLY TWO. So far, two. It could change, it could go, but it’s not 10,000.

395 cast ballots in two states. We’re investigating that, but again, we got double voters, which we are investigating, but again we’re talking handfuls, not tens of thousands. Let’s remember, and we’re all very clear on the number now, that it was 11,779 – we’ve seen nothing in our investigations of any of these data claims that shows there’s near enough ballots to change the outcome. And the Secretary, and I at this podium, have said since November 3rd, “There is illegal voting in every single election in the history of mankind because there are human beings involved in the process. It’s going to happen. It’s a question of limiting it, and putting as many safeguards as you can in place to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Alright. Oh, yeah. We had part of the hand-tally be discussed in relation to the potential double-scanning. Let’s just go to the other ridiculous claims that Dominion Voting machines are somehow using fractional voting for flipping votes. Again, by doing the hand-tally, it shows that none of that is true. Not a whit.

And let’s go back to the overall claims about Dominion Voting Systems in general. If you look in Wisconsin they are claiming, that Wisconsin was stolen through Dominion Voting machines. In the 14 counties in which Dominion Voting machines were used in Wisconsin, the President got 59% of the vote. In the counties in Pennsylvania where Dominion Voting machines were used, he got 52-1/2% of the vote. He made a claim at one point that over 900,000 votes were deleted by Dominion Voting machines, and the 14 counties where that happened they had 1.3 million vote, that was 76% turnout, and in order for 900,00 to have been deleted, they would have had to have 130% turnout. That did not happen, because it CANNOT happen. Again, this is all EASILY PROVABLY FALSE. YET THE PRESIDENT PERSISTS! AND BY DOING SO, UNDERMINES GEORGIANS’ FAITH IN THE ELECTION SYSTEM. ESPECIALLY REPUBLICAN GEORGIANS IN THIS CASE, which is important, because we have a big election coming up tomorrow, and everybody deserves to have their vote counted if they want it to be, Republican and Democrat alike.

Now, let’s move on to signature matching. There were claims about signature matching not being done, and they were based on FEELINGS. “WE BELIEVE.” No specific evidence was ever brought up until in one of the Trump filings, there was a specific allegation that signature verification was not being done on the absentee ballot request form properly, in Cobb County during the June primary. So that’s the first time we had a specific actionable claim of signature match not being done. So with that in mind, the Governor graciously offered after the Secretary and he discussed potentially using GBI Resources. So we got GBI to come alongside Secretary of State investigators, multiple teams. Vic Reynolds stood here last week to announce the outcome of that. And of the 15,118 absentee ballot envelopes that they investigated, they found TWO with potential problems. TWO! 99.99% was properly done. And of those two, the actual voter who was intended to be marked as voting, was the actual voter. They could have been done through a cure period, which would have been a better way to do that.

Another thing that they want to talk about is the vast difference in rejection rates. Well, what we’ve seen is there was NOT a vast difference in rejection rates. What’s happening, in order to confuse people because they don’t understand the election systems, is they are conflating THE ENTIRETY OF ABSENTEE BALLOTS REJECTED VERSUS THOSE REJECTED FOR SIGNATURE MISMATCH OR MISSING SIGNATURE. Now, we’re also comparing apples to oranges. In 16 – I’ve done this so long I don’t want to screw up these numbers, but I’m going to give the general, I think it was .26%, in 18 it was .16%, and in 2020 so far .15%, and we’ve got some updated numbers on this now, and the difference is that in 2019 HB316 was passed which allowed there to be curing of ballots. So there are teams of Republicans and Democrats, young people running around the state, as we speak, finding people who have signature issues to cure their ballots. That’s going on right now, and the Democrats did a much better job of that during the general election. The Republicans were not prepared. The Democrats had their own forms set up; they had teams set up; they were ready to go. It was sort of a late entry on the Republican side to do some of those.

And about 5,000 total ballots were rejected for some purpose, and about 2,600 of those were cured. So that means the final rejection was around 2,400 ballots around the total of 5 million, or a percentage of 1.3 million that we saw that were voted absentee.

Let’s go into some of the more “new” things. There is no shredding of ballots going on. THAT’S NOT REAL. THAT’S NOT HAPPENING. There is shredding of envelopes, the non-used ones, or there is also shredding of the secrecy envelopes that came through, and we saw some of those in the Senate hearing, and it’s obvious that they are the secrecy envelopes which have NO EVIDENTIARY VALUE because there’s no signature on it, there’s no way to match it back. They are just basically trash. The law requires you keep the signature and oath envelopes, and the ballots themselves for two months. Those are all being kept!

This is one I don’t fully understand. “No one is changing parts or pieces out of Dominion Voting machines.” I don’t even know what that means. That’s not a real thing. That’s not happening. The President mentioned it on the call yesterday, or from two days ago, that’s again, NOT REAL. I don’t even know how exactly to explain that.

Secretary Raffesperger DOES NOT HAVE A BROTHER NAMED RON RAFFENSPERGER. That is also not real. The President tweeted out that as well.

Let’s see – it’s such a long list! Oh, yes. The other really fantastical thing we saw the other day was “a potential hacking of Dominion equipment during a Senate hearing last week.” THAT DID NOT HAPPEN EITHER. Let’s go over a couple of reasons why. First of all, ballot marking devices and scanners, neither one have modems! It’s very hard to hack things without modems. There is nothing to talk to. So let’s get that clear. The poll pads, which is a no-link device, does have the ability to connect to WIFI which we use for loading purposes and in case there is an issue on election day, but they are not hooked up live all the time, and if they saw anything, they could see traffic back and forth but it would be basically like watching a river go by; you couldn’t get in. It’s essentially IF THEY DID THIS, WHICH WE HAVE NO PROOF OF, we have claim after claim after claim with ZERO PROOF. ZERO! And signed affidavits are part of an evidentiary trail, but they have to be investigated, and let’s remember: everybody who came and gave “TESTIMONY” was public comment at the State Senate hearing. THIS OFFICE WAS NEVER ASKED TO COME AND DISCUSS THOSE ITEMS WITH THAT STATE SENATE HEARING, STATE SUBCOMMITTEE. THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN EITHER. Which I find interesting, because obviously they are making WILD CLAIMS THAT AGAIN UNDERMINE PEOPLE’S FAITH IN THE SYSTEM.

Oh yeah, this is another one that came over the weekend from the founder of Overstock.com, that they had found thousands and thousands of fake ballots in Fulton County warehouse. For any of y’all in the press who have been to the Fulton County warehouse, these are the emergency ballots that have been sitting in that warehouse since BEFORE THE NOVEMBER ELECTION VERY MUCH IN PLAIN VIEW OF EVERYBODY TO SEE. And what happened, the reason they had a high number – first of all, every county has to have those emergency ballots by rule. The State Election Board rule says you have to have 10% of the available ones for each polling location, and they have to be printed for that polling location, for the ballot style, so they can track it properly. In Fulton County’s case, you all may remember that there was a COVID outbreak in their warehouse not long before the Logic & Accuracy testing period was happening for the general election. In a very wild abundance of caution, they had what they referred to was not Plan A, not Plan B, but they referred to as Plan C which was if we can’t get people in to do the Logic & Accuracy testing on all of our equipment, we’re going to print up 100% of our ballots we need to let [inaudible] if we cannot get the machines done. They did that out of an abundance of caution given the unknowable unknowns surrounding COVID and their ability to get employees in to do that. They were thankfully able to get the employees in; Dominion staff came in to help and make sure they got a Logic & Accuracy test done. So they were able to deploy all of their BMDs and BMD carriers and scanners. So they didn’t have to use those ballots, but that’s why those ballots existed. THEY ARE NOT FAKE BALLOTS. THEY ARE REAL BALLOTS. THEY ARE UNUSED BALLOTS. And what I find really interesting about this is they were in shrink-wrapped items in boxes that are sealed. What can you do with these? They are sitting right there. Everyone saw them.

Let’s see. I’m trying to think what other – here’s part of the problem, y’all. I sit down and try to write down every thing that we see that comes over the Internet as a potential disinformation. It gets exploded. We all look at these things. We know there’s lots of bots that are doing it; we have foreign powers that are pushing some of these things at the same time. So here’s the take-away from all this. This office has been open and transparent. We are continuing investigation. There are questions about “pristine” ballots. That’s one last thing. The “pristine” ballot thing. There are three reasons you can have the “pristine” ballot, which is essentially the absentee/emergency/ provisional ballot. First one: military and overseas voters oftentimes will get what they call an “electronic ballot.” What happens is, once we get the ballot built, starting from the 49th to the 45th day, we will send emails out to those people who want to have an electronic ballot delivery, which is many of our military servicemen and women. So they take that and print it, and they bubble-in their choice. Now obviously that’s on 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper, or 11 x 14, or whatever they can print it on, so it’s not sized properly to go through a scanner, so when that comes back to the county, they will duplicate that on a flat, unfolded piece of paper on the absentee ballot/emergency ballot. That’s a normal process for many of the military and overseas voters that are electronically delivered. The other situation you might see that in is an emergency ballot situation. If a ballot-marking device goes down, or wasn’t used, which is the case we saw in the morning in Spalding County on election day, they will use the emergency ballots as backup. And those will be scanned directly into the machine and not folded. And the final place you would see that is on a damaged, or adjudicated ballot that was not adjudicated through the electronic system, or in Fulton’s case, we just saw was they were putting so many of the absentee ballots through their cutters, that occasionally would catch the ballot itself and slice it. In Fulton County’s case, they did the vast majority – I think 100% of their duplication – on a BMD. In Cobb County location, I think they did all of those on hand-marked paper ballots. So there’s a difference of use and process within each of the counties. So that’s why you would see “pristine” ballots.

Uh, Wednesday. We’ve all heard the reports there is going to be several senators and congressmen who will be objecting to the electors being seated. We anticipate that each time they do that, they’ll separate out, they’ll have their debate for two hours, the State of Georgia’s electors will get seated; they will look at this evidence as best they can in such a way, and it will be voted on by the House and Senate. We anticipate that, and that will prove our certification was proper by the end of the day, and that we followed the process properly. And I give you back to Senator Tom Cotton’s statement of earlier today, that this is the process that we follow. This is the appropriate step under the Constitution, under the laws of the State of Georgia and the laws of the United States.

So [sigh] with that, I want to say if you’re a Georgia voter, if you want your values reflected by your elected officials, I strongly beg and encourage you, GO VOTE TOMORROW. Do not let anybody discourage you. Do not self-suppress your own vote. Do not make a self-fulfilling prophecy out of doing this. Don’t let anybody steal your vote that way. And that’s what’s happening. If you self-suppress, you are taking away your important voice from this election.

So with that, I’ll go ahead and take any questions y’all got.

Q: Yeah, is the Secretary of State, or the State Election Board, considering asking for the Fulton D.A., or the Georgia Attorney General, to investigate the call with the President over the weekend?

A: I do not know that.

Q: Any discussions of that?

A: Not that I am aware of.

Q: From all that you said there, do you believe, as some have said, that what happened in that phone call was an attack on democracy?

A: I’ll leave other people to make the decision on that. I personally found that to be something that was not normal, out-of-place, and nobody I know who would be President would do something like that to a Secretary of State.

Q: Have you heard about any threats or security problems or anything that could interfere with people voting? And also, what do you expect turnout to be like tomorrow?

A: Well, I anticipate there will be a high turnout, and there’s a large bucket of voters in many, many congressional districts that could potentially show up. We anticipate there could be any number of potential threats out there that could be attempting to encourage or discourage turnout. We encourage everybody to please turn out and be safe, be smart, and don’t let anybody get in the way of you casting your vote.

Q: And have you heard about any threats? Will there be extra security?

A: We’ve discussed with GBI, FBI and Sheriff’s Departments potentially there being threats, and we’ve seen some of that nature potentially out there that are under investigation.

Q: Following up very quickly on Justin’s question, two members of the State Board of Elections have called upon the Secretary of State office to investigate that phone call. How is the Secretary’s office responding? Is there any plan to investigate, or will they block that investigation in any way?

A: I’m not aware of any discussion specifically on that yet, but I’m sure it will be taken under advisement.

Q: I’ll ask you very quickly about the Secretary’s desire to have that phone call recorded. Why did he want to that phone call recorded? Was he concerned about anything improper being said, or that he may need to release it later?

A: I think given the environment we’re in right now, and the political situation we’re in, and the history of the President, knowing that he sometimes doesn’t necessarily characterize things as they might actually have occurred. It was out of an abundance of caution. And I’m sure even the President’s side recorded it too, so they might have been the ones that leaked part of that as well.

Q: How do you interpret the President asking the Secretary of State to “find votes” on that phone call? Is it fair to say the President was asking the Secretary of State to fraudulently “find” or “flip” votes?

A: I don’t know if he was asking to fraudulently “find” the votes, but things we have certified this election say there are no more votes to find. We’ll continue investigations, and he has an election challenge. And one of the things they were discussing on that phone call was they have sued the State of Georgia and Secretary of State. There are rules of evidence to follow once you do that. Trying to go outside of that is an issue. And I believe our lawyers have sent their lawyers a letter saying “If you want to dismiss your challenge, we’re more than happy to share this data with you to show that your data is incorrect, and you have in fact lost the State of Georgia.

Q: The Bureau of Investigation says there is an unprecedented number of threats that have come in state-wide regarding the election. We’re not sure the nature of those threats. Are you aware of what type of threats you guys might face?

A: We’re aware of some, but we’re trying to not discuss in too much detail about that while we try to investigate and find out what the actual nature of those threats may be.

Q: This is now the second sort of conversation that the Secretary of State that has been reported out on this topic. First it was Lindsay Graham earlier in November, and now the President. Has the Secretary of State’s office been contacted by any other members of the Trump administration or GOP officials?

A: Our office is contacted by Democrats, Republicans pretty consistently discussing election issues. So yes. That has occurred. Specifically, it’s a little bit of a broad question I think. But we get contacted by members of the Administration; we get contacted by Democrats and Republicans.

Q: Have you been contacted on the topic of some of these conspiracy theories that you’ve outlined today?

A: No more than my normal of having to explain the ridiculousness of many of these pieces of disinformation. Thank you very much.
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Sun Dec 05, 2021 9:18 am

Women Terrorized By Trump, Right-Wing Media File Lawsuit Over Election Lies
by Rachel Maddow
MSNBC
Dec 3, 2021



Rachel Maddow shares Reuters reporting on two women who were threatened and terrorized by Trump supporters and right-wing media after Donald Trump singled them out in a false accusation that they were the reason he lost the 2020 election in Georgia.

**************************

Reuters unmasks Trump supporters who terrified U.S. election workers
by Linda So and Jason Szep
Reuters
November 9, 2021
10:39 AM MST
Last Updated a month ago

Nov 9 (Reuters) - In Arizona, a stay-at-home dad and part-time Lyft driver told the state’s chief election officer she would hang for treason. In Utah, a youth treatment center staffer warned Colorado’s election chief that he knew where she lived and watched her as she slept.

In Vermont, a man who says he works in construction told workers at the state election office and at Dominion Voting Systems that they were about to die.

“This might be a good time to put a f‑‑‑‑‑‑ pistol in your f‑‑‑‑‑‑ mouth and pull the trigger,” the man shouted at Vermont officials in a thick New England accent last December. “Your days are f‑‑‑‑‑‑ numbered."

The three had much in common. All described themselves as patriots fighting a conspiracy that robbed Donald Trump of the 2020 election. They are regular consumers of far-right websites that embrace Trump’s stolen-election falsehoods. And none have been charged with a crime by the law enforcement agencies alerted to their threats.

They were among nine people who told Reuters in interviews that they made threats or left other hostile messages to election workers. In all, they are responsible for nearly two dozen harassing communications to six election officials in four states. Seven made threats explicit enough to put a reasonable person in fear of bodily harm or death, the U.S. federal standard for criminal prosecution, according to four legal experts who reviewed their messages at Reuters’ request.

These cases provide a unique perspective into how people with everyday jobs and lives have become radicalized to the point of terrorizing public officials. They are part of a broader campaign of fear waged against frontline workers of American democracy chronicled by Reuters this year. The news organization has documented nearly 800 intimidating messages to election officials in 12 states, including more than 100 that could warrant prosecution, according to legal experts.

The examination of the threats also highlights the paralysis of law enforcement in responding to this extraordinary assault on the nation’s electoral machinery. After Reuters reported the widespread intimidation in June, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a task force to investigate threats against election staff and said it would aggressively pursue such cases. But law enforcement agencies have made almost no arrests and won no convictions.

In many cases, they didn’t investigate. Some messages were too hard to trace, officials said. Other instances were complicated by America’s patchwork of state laws governing criminal threats, which provide varying levels of protection for free speech and make local officials in some states reluctant to prosecute such cases. Adding to the confusion, legal scholars say, the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t formulated a clear definition of a criminal threat.

For this report, Reuters set out to identify the people behind these attacks on election workers and understand their motivations. Reporters submitted public-records requests and interviewed dozens of election officials in 12 states, obtaining phone numbers and email addresses for two dozen of the threateners.

Reuters was able to interview nine of them. All admitted they were behind the threats or other hostile messages. Eight did so on the record, identifying themselves by name.

In the seven cases that legal scholars said could be prosecuted, law enforcement agencies were alerted by election officials to six of them. The people who made those threats told Reuters they never heard from police.

All nine harassers interviewed by Reuters said they believed they did nothing wrong. Just two expressed regret when told their messages had frightened officials or caused security scares. The seven others were unrepentant, with some saying the election workers deserved the menacing messages.

Ross Miller, a Georgia real-estate investor, warned an official in the Atlanta area that he’d be tarred and feathered, hung or face firing squads unless he addressed voter fraud. In an interview, Miller said he would continue to make such calls “until they do something.” He added: “We can’t have another election until they fix what happened in the last one.”

The harassers expressed beliefs similar to those voiced by rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, trying to block Democrat Joe Biden’s certification as president. Nearly all of the threateners saw the country deteriorating into a war between good and evil – “patriots” against “communists.” They echoed extremist ideas popularized by QAnon, a collective of baseless conspiracy theories that often cast Trump as a savior figure and Democrats as villains. Some said they were preparing for civil war. Six were in their 50s or older; all but two were men.

They are part of a national phenomenon. America’s federal elections are administered by state and local officials. But the threateners are targeting workers far from home: Seven of the nine harassed officials in other states. Some targeted election officials in states where Trump lost by substantial margins, such as Colorado – or even Vermont, where Biden won by 35 percentage points.

“These people firmly believe in the ‘Big Lie’ that the former president legitimately won the election,” said Chris Krebs, who ran the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security. Krebs was fired by Trump last year for declaring that the 2020 election had been conducted fairly. By terrorizing election officials, he said, they’re effectively acting as Trump’s “foot soldiers.”

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Representative John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat, introduced legislation in June to make it a federal crime to intimidate, threaten or harass an election worker. The bill, which has not come up for a vote, followed a Reuters investigation into such threats published the same month.

“I think we’re on a dangerous path,” Sarbanes said last week when told the threats were continuing with little law enforcement intervention. “We want there to be some effective and sustained push back on this kind of harassment.”

YOU'RE 'ABOUT TO GET F------ POPPED'

Only one of the nine harassers Reuters interviewed wouldn’t reveal his identity: the man threatening Vermont officials. Before reporters started examining him, law enforcement officials had decided against investigating, as many other agencies have done in similar cases nationwide.

Late last year, between Nov. 22 and Dec. 1, he left three messages with the secretary of state’s office from a number that state police deemed “essentially untraceable,” according to an internal police email obtained through a public-records request. The man identified himself as a Vermont resident in one voicemail.

Police didn’t pursue a case on the grounds that he didn’t threaten a specific person or indicate an imminent plan to act, according to emails and prosecution records. State police never spoke with the caller, according to interviews with state officials, a law enforcement source and a review of internal police emails.

Reuters did.

Reporters connected with him in September on the phone number police called untraceable. In five conversations over four days spanning more than three hours, he acknowledged threatening Vermont officials and described his thinking.

He soon grew agitated, peppering two Reuters reporters with 137 texts and voicemails over the past month, threatening the journalists and describing his election conspiracy theories.

The man telephoned the secretary of state’s office again on Oct. 17 from the same phone number used in the other threats. This time he was more explicit. Addressing state staffers and referring to the two journalists by name, he said he guaranteed that all would soon get “popped.”

“You guys are a bunch of f‑‑‑‑‑‑ clowns, and all you dirty c‑‑‑suckers are about to get f‑‑‑‑‑‑ popped,” he said. “I f‑‑‑‑‑‑ guarantee it.”

The officials referred the voicemail to state police, who again declined to investigate. Agency spokesperson Adam Silverman said in a statement that the message didn’t constitute an “unambiguous reference to gun violence,” adding that the word “popped” – common American slang for “shot” – “is unclear and nonspecific, and could be a reference to someone being arrested.”

Legal experts didn’t see it that way. Fred Schauer, a University of Virginia law professor, said the message likely constituted a criminal threat under federal law by threatening gun violence at specific individuals. “There’s certainly an intent to put people in fear,” Schauer said.

After Reuters asked Vermont officials about the October threat, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began an inquiry into the matter, according to two local law enforcement officials.

The FBI declined to confirm or deny any investigation into that threat and others reported in this story. In a statement, the bureau said it takes such acts seriously, working with other law enforcement agencies “to identify and stop any potential threats to public safety” and “investigate any and all federal violations to the fullest."

'I'M A PATRIOT'

Many of the harassers have been radicalized by a growing universe of far-right websites and other sources of disinformation about the 2020 election. Like Trump, they bashed mainstream news outlets and cast them as complicit in an elaborate scheme to steal the election.

Jamie Fialkin of Peoria, Arizona, talked of a grand conspiracy of those controlling the media, the banking system and social media companies. “When you have those three things, you can get away with anything – you can tell people, ‘black is white, white is black,’ and people go, ‘OK,’” Fialkin said.

On the surface, nothing about Fialkin’s biography suggests extremism. A former stand-up comedian from Brooklyn, New York, Fialkin said he has a degree in actuarial science, the study of insurance data. In 2017, he self-published a book marketed as a “survival guide” for first-time older parents. The 54-year-old said he spends most days taking care of his two young daughters and driving part-time for Lyft.

At a 2006 comedy show, he poked fun at his “professional bowler” physique, balding head, and inability to play golf. The self-described Orthodox Jew also took aim at Palestinians and described his political views as “a little more to the right.”

Fialkin said in an interview that he’s no longer in a joking mood.

He believes America is headed for civil war. He endorsed Trump’s false claims that millions of fraudulent votes swung the election to Biden. He said he’s convinced that former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and progressive philanthropist George Soros bought fake ballots from China, another debunked theory promoted by Trump’s allies.

Fialkin blamed one person in particular for Trump’s Arizona loss: Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the state’s top election official. On June 3, Fialkin called Hobbs’ office and left a message saying she’d hang “from a f‑‑‑‑‑‑ tree.”

“They’re going to hang you for treason, you f‑‑‑‑‑‑ bitch,” Fialkin said.

Minutes later, Fialkin left another voicemail in which he recommended a “good slogan” for Democrat Hobbs’ campaign for governor: “Don’t vote for me, for one reason. Back in December, I got hung for treason.”

Fialkin said he never intended to harm Hobbs, but was unapologetic.

“I’m not denying anything,” he said, “because I’m a patriot.”

Fialkin said he changed his Republican voter registration to independent because the party didn’t fight hard enough for Trump.

“I’m like most Americans,” he said. “We’re just waiting to see when the civil war starts.”

Fialkin’s messages were part of a barrage targeting Hobbs. Two others came from Jeff Yeager, a 56-year-old self-employed electrician from Los Angeles, California. Yeager, too, called for her execution.

“When Katie the c‑‑‑ is executed for treason, what are you f‑‑‑‑‑‑ traitors going to be doing for work?” Yeager said in a June 17 voicemail left for Hobbs and her staff. Months later, on Sept. 8, he left another voicemail warning she’d be executed.

Yeager acknowledged leaving the messages and said he didn’t care if Hobbs felt threatened. “If she thinks that I’m a threat to her, I’m not,” he said. “But the public is going to hang this woman.”

Yeager said he sees the mainstream media as full of disinformation; he called Reuters “one of the most evil organizations on the planet.” He said he gets his news from “alternative websites that are not censored,” including social network Gab and Bitchute, a video-sharing site known for hosting far-right figures and conspiracy theorists.

“Everything we’re being told is a lie,” he said.

In an interview, Hobbs said the threats by Fialkin, Yeager and others have been “emotionally draining” for her and her staff. The messages from Fialkin and Yeager were sent to the FBI, her spokesperson said. Some threats triggered a security detail, Hobbs said.

Jared Carter, a Cornell University law professor specializing in constitutional free-speech issues, said the threats by both men could be prosecuted under federal law. “In light of the multiple voicemails from the same person, and the overall tone of the messages, a court could find them to be true threats,” Carter said.

Election administrators such as Hobbs are part of a broader array of public officials targeted by Trump supporters. The day before Yeager spoke with Reuters in September, he said, two FBI agents visited him at his Los Angeles home to discuss threats he made to two national politicians: Republican Senator Mitt Romney and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both of whom denounced Trump for inciting the January 6 insurrection. He said the FBI agents produced transcripts of his calls to Pelosi and Romney. Yeager said the transcripts quoted him as saying “we will kill you.”

The agents instructed him how to lawfully express his political views, Yeager said, and left without arresting him. “I’m not making any more calls to anybody,” he said. “I may have crossed the line in one sentence, but I’m no danger to anybody.”

Spokespeople for Romney and Pelosi declined to comment on Yeager’s threats.

INSPIRED BY TRUMP

Others who threatened election officials told Reuters they were directly inspired by Trump or his prominent allies, who have denounced specific election offices nationwide for allowing voter fraud, turning them into targets.

Eric Pickett, a 42-year-old night staffer at a youth treatment center in Utah, said his anger boiled over after watching an Aug. 10 “cyber symposium” held by pillow magnate Mike Lindell, a Trump ally who has pushed false election conspiracy theories.

Pickett said he paid close attention as one of the symposium’s speakers, Tina Peters, a Republican clerk in Colorado’s Mesa County, criticized Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat. Griswold has been leading an investigation into Peters over a voting-system security breach in Mesa, one of the state’s most conservative counties. At the symposium, Peters, an election-fraud conspiracy theorist, claimed Griswold “raided” her office to produce false evidence and “bully” her.

None of that was true, according to state officials. Nonetheless, Pickett snapped. He got on Facebook and sent Griswold a message.

“You raided an office. You broke the law. STOP USING YOUR TACTICS. STOP NOW. Watch your back. I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP, I SEE YOU SLEEPING. BE AFRAID, BE VERRY AFFRAID. I hope you die.”

A Griswold spokesperson said the August message was promptly referred to state and federal law enforcement. The threat was reported by Reuters in September.

Pickett said in an interview that he “got wrapped up in the moment.” He was surprised Griswold found the message threatening and expressed regret for causing alarm.

“I didn’t know they would take it as a threat,” he said. “I was thinking they would just take it as somebody just trolling them.”

Colorado State Patrol, in response to a records request, said they had no investigative reports on the threat. A spokesperson, Sergeant Troy Kessler, said the State Patrol reviewed all messages it received from Griswold’s office and that no one had been arrested.

Three legal experts said the message met the threshold of a threat that could be prosecuted under federal law. “The whole purpose of the threats doctrine is to protect people from not only a prospect of physical violence, but the damage of living with a threat hanging over you,” said Timothy Zick, a William & Mary Law School professor.

Lindell and Peters did not respond to requests for comment.

TARRED AND FEATHERED

Trump’s stolen-election claims about Georgia, traditionally a Republican stronghold, have sparked some of the most serious election threats.

In a Dec. 10 hearing organized by Georgia Republican lawmakers, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani played a short snippet of surveillance footage from Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, which was used as a tabulation site. He claimed it showed Fulton County election workers pulling out suitcases full of fraudulent ballots in Biden’s favor. State investigators and county officials have said the “suitcases” were standard ballot containers and the video shows normal vote-counting.

Ross Miller, the real-estate investor in Forsyth County, Georgia, saw the video. He left a Dec. 31 voicemail for Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron, saying he “better run” and that he’ll be tarred and feathered and executed unless “ya'll do something” about voter fraud. Barron forwarded the threat to police, according to a county email.

However, Fulton County Police Chief Wade Yates said his agency did not contact Miller after concluding the message did not constitute a threat under Georgia law.

In an interview, Miller acknowledged making the call.

“I left the message because I’m a patriot, and I’m sick and tired of what’s going on in this country,” he said. “That’s what happens when you commit treason: You get hung.”

Miller, who said he was in his sixties, said he’s been kicked off Twitter seven times for his views. He follows “Tore Says,” a podcast popular with QAnon adherents whose host, Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman, has called for a “revolutionary movement.”

“You've got to stand up,” said Miller. “You're either a patriot for the freedom of this country or you're a communist against it.”

'YOU'RE ALL F------ DEAD'

Some Vermont officials questioned why the man intimidating state officials wasn’t investigated or prosecuted, highlighting a broader national debate over how to respond to post-election threats. In a pattern seen across America, Vermont law enforcement officials decided this man’s repeated menacing messages amounted to legally protected free speech.

The threatener focused on one of the central conspiracy theories promoted by Trump and his allies: That officials had rigged vote-counting technology from Dominion Voting Systems to flip millions of votes to Biden.

“Just let everybody know that their days are f------ numbered,” he said in a Dec. 1 voicemail. “There are a lot of people who are going to be executed.”

Around that time, officials at Dominion’s headquarters in Colorado received three unsettling voicemails. “You’re all f‑‑‑‑‑‑ dead,” said one message. “We’re going to f‑‑‑‑‑‑ kill you all.” The caller’s telephone number and voice matched those on the Vermont threats.

The threats to Dominion were referred to the Denver Police Department and the FBI. Denver police failed to identify the caller, a department spokesperson said.

The Vermont secretary of state’s office is located in a historic 19th-century brick Queen Anne-style house in the capital of Montpelier. The staff helps register voters and administer elections in a state with one of America’s lowest rates of violent crime. The voicemails terrified some staffers.

“I had to try to calm people down,” Secretary of State Jim Condos said in an interview. “We were all on edge.”

After the Dec. 1 threats, Vermont Deputy Secretary of State Chris Winters expressed astonishment that police wouldn’t pursue the caller, according to emails between secretary-of-state officials and police obtained through a records’ request.

“I am trying to make sense of this,” Winters wrote in an email to Daniel Trudeau, the criminal division commander of the Vermont State Police. “If someone makes a veiled threat to come to the Secretary of State’s office and execute only the guilty ones on the election team, without naming names, they’ve not broken the law?” Winters added that he wanted to know “who we’re dealing with.”

Trudeau replied that he had consulted with other officers and didn’t see a crime, because the caller did not specify that he would come to the secretary of state’s office and did not say that he personally would execute anyone.

Vermont’s state police intelligence unit tried but failed to identify the caller. Police examined the number, which bore a Vermont area code, but said it was untraceable, according to an email between state police officials. The unit’s commander, Shawn Loan, wrote to Trudeau saying that the threats could be part of a “larger campaign” and the calls “may have been scripted.” He added that the caller used voice-over-internet technology. Two former FBI agents said such calls can be harder to trace than those made from landlines or cellular phones.

Loan was not immediately available for comment, a spokesperson said.

Vermont State Police didn’t pursue the threatener. Rory Thibault, the state’s attorney in Washington County, which includes Montpelier, supported Trudeau’s decision in a four-page Dec. 15 memo to state police. The messages were “protected speech,” Thibault wrote, because they were not “directed at a single person or official.” They were “conditional” on a “perception of malfeasance in the election process,” and the caller didn’t indicate he would personally inflict harm, he said.

Zick, the William & Mary professor, said a threat doesn’t necessarily have to single out a specific individual to be prosecuted under federal law. If someone calls in a bomb threat to Congress rather than to a specific senator’s office, for instance, “that’s still a threat.”

In an interview, Thibault said Vermont laws pose unique challenges for pursuing such cases because they offer greater protections for individual rights than federal laws. He added that the threats and the rise of extremist rhetoric are leading to a push for tougher anti-harassment laws.

Vermont State Representative Maxine Grad said she plans to introduce a bill in the January session aimed at broadening protections for people who have received criminal threats, such as election workers.

On Dec. 16, a day after the state’s attorney ruled out an investigation, the unidentified caller taunted Vermont election officials in a new voicemail. “All the traitors will be punished” in the “next few weeks,” he said. “Kill yourself now.”

This time, the caller used a different number that appeared to be a pre-paid “burner” phone.

Montpelier Police Chief Brian Peete was concerned. “Very disturbing,” he wrote to state police, security and secretary of state officials after reviewing the Dec. 16 threat. “Fits profile of someone who may act.”

Again, state police declined to investigate because the caller didn’t threaten a specific individual, according to police emails.

The phone numbers used by the caller left few clues about his identity. One reverse phone lookup service linked his number to Bennington, a town of about 15,000 people in southwest Vermont. Denver police couldn’t identify the caller, but found “decent information” linking the number to Bennington, according to a Denver Police Department report on the threats to Dominion.

Surrounded by the Green Mountains, the Bennington area is known for its picturesque farm houses, a towering Revolutionary War battle monument and blazing autumn foliage. Less known is that the rural, mostly white town and other parts of southern Vermont have seen a rise in Trump-inspired militia activity in recent years, residents and state officials say.

In April, the town agreed to pay a $137,500 settlement to Kiah Morris, the state legislature’s only black female elected official, who resigned in September 2018, following complaints that Bennington police failed to properly investigate racially motivated harassment against her. Morris declined to comment for this story.

The calls from the still-unidentified man threatening election officials and reporters were referred to the FBI, according to police emails.

Reuters first reached the man on Sept. 17. In a brief interview, he referenced the Dominion conspiracy theory. Asked for his name, he swore and hung up.

A week later, the journalists contacted him again on the same number. He admitted leaving the voicemails to express his “absolute dissatisfaction” in the election. In three subsequent phone interviews on Oct. 6 and 7 that spanned a total of two and a half hours, he opened up about his views.

The man said he believed thousands of fake ballots were cast in Arizona, repeating debunked claims. He said members of the media would face tribunals and be executed like the Nazi leaders who were hung after the Nuremberg trials in the 1940s and that perpetrators of election fraud would be sent to military prison.

He said he lived “in the woods,” and worked in construction. He didn’t own a gun, but said he had “a baseball bat and a machete.” He shared videos from the far-right website Bitchute and said he watched “all kinds of stuff that definitely needs to be investigated.”

Then he turned on the Reuters journalists.

In an Oct. 11 voicemail, he threatened to sue the reporters for obtaining his telephone number from state records. Over the next 25 days, he texted them 91 times, sharing misinformation on the origins of the coronavirus and other conspiracy theories. On Oct. 17, he left the new voicemails at the Vermont secretary of state’s office, including the one threatening that the reporters and election staffers would get “popped.”

The next morning, the caller followed up with more texts to the journalists. “I am going to destroy you and that is a threat.” In multiple texts, he said he would “ruin” the life of one of the reporters. On Oct. 30, he left two more voicemails for them. “You are all going to f‑‑‑‑‑‑ hang. I’m going to make sure of it,” said one. “Bad s‑‑‑ is gonna to happen to you,” said the other. “Your days are f‑‑‑‑‑‑ numbered.”

He also sent the reporters four messages with the same picture: a grainy black-and-white photograph of a public execution that has been shared widely in far-right social media, with a caption claiming it showed “members of the media” hanging in “Nuremberg, Germany.” (In fact, the photo was taken in Kiev, Ukraine, depicting Nazi officers being hung for war crimes.)

The man’s threats and the rise in extremism in Vermont and nationwide since the election are a concern for Peete and his small staff in the Montpelier Police Department.

“It’s something that keeps me and all of us here up at night,” the police chief said.
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Sun Dec 05, 2021 9:28 am

Georgia Election Workers Sue Gateway Pundit for Publishing ‘Known Falsehoods’ Accusing Them of Ballot Fraud: ‘A Campaign of Lies’
by Sarah Rumpf
Mediaite
Dec 2nd, 2021, 5:47 pm

Image
Photo of Jim Hoft, publisher of The Gateway Pundit, by Ben Jackson/Getty Images for SiriusXM.

Two women who were Fulton County, Georgia election workers during the 2020 election have filed a defamation lawsuit against right-wing website The Gateway Pundit, the site’s founder and publisher Jim Hoft, and his twin brother who contributes articles, Joe Hoft. The lawsuit relates to false information they published that led to the women being targeted with death threats, racist slurs, and other harassment.

As The New York Times noted in their reporting on the lawsuit, it was “among the first to be filed by individual election workers who found themselves unwittingly dragged into the alternate universe of far-right media that claimed, and still does, that [former President] Donald J. Trump won last year’s presidential election.”

The complaint was filed by Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss in St. Louis, Missouri, where Jim Hoft resides (the website’s name is inspired by St. Louis’ landmark monument, the Gateway Arch), and says the defendants targeted the women in a “campaign of lies” by falsely accusing them of committing ballot fraud.

Gateway Pundit started running dozens of such articles in December 2020 and continued through last month, accusing the women of working to steal the presidential election in Georgia from Trump.

“The lies about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss have not only devastated their personal and professional reputations but instigated a deluge of intimidation, harassment, and threats that have forced them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts, and fear for their physical safety,” stated the complaint.

Jim Hoft was permanently banned from Twitter in February of this year after a long-running habit of posting unproven claims, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and just flat-out lies.

The complaint notes Gateway Pundit’s poor reputation for accuracy, describing the defendants as “the leading purveyors of false information in the United States, spreading baseless conspiracy theories and disinformation for fame and fortune,” and noting that “The Gateway Pundit has been identified as the top producer of false content during and after the 2020 presidential election” (emphasis in original).


The Hofts’ conspiracy peddling isn’t happening on some unknown remote corner of the interwebs, either; as David French noted in a Twitter thread discussing this lawsuit, Gateway Pundit is “one of the top websites in right-wing media.”

Image
David French
@DavidAFrench
Replying to @DavidAFrench
And if you think, "Who cares about Gateway Pundit? It's fringe, troll right," remember that it's one of the top websites in right-wing media. /3
9:48 AM Dec 2, 2021


They rake in millions of views every month and the ad revenue that follows all those virtual eyeballs.

The “unverified and uncorroborated information” Gateway Pundit published attacking Freeman and Moss “was refuted in real-time by Georgia’s statewide election officials, many of whom are elected Republicans,” said the women’s legal counsel in a press release announcing the lawsuit, but “[t]hey continued to publish these untruths long after they were proven to be false.”

The women’s attorneys sent a letter to the defendants describing the untrue allegations in detail and requesting a retraction. At the time the complaint was filed, the posts still remained up on the website.

The damage was exacerbated by the website publishing Freeman and Moss’ names and photos, and the complaint describes the harrowing “violent, racist threats and harassment of all kinds” the two women, who are Black, received:


At the height of Defendants’ campaign of disinformation, Ms. Freeman, at the recommendation of the FBI, fled her home and did not return for two months. On January 6, 2021, a crowd on foot and in vehicles surrounded Ms. Freeman’s house. Ms. Freeman was forced to shutter her online business when social media became impossible to navigate. Ms. Moss has suffered personal and professional consequences in her ongoing work on Fulton County elections. On at least two occasions, strangers showed up at her grandmother’s home and attempted to push into the house in order to make a “citizens’ arrest.” Fulton County elections’ general email address would forward incoming emails to Ms. Moss and many of her colleagues, filling her workplace with harassing messages.

…As a result of Defendants’ ongoing campaign, both women are afraid to live normal lives. Ms. Freeman is fearful when she hears her name called in public; Ms. Moss now fears risking even a visit to the grocery store and must get her groceries delivered instead. Defendants have inflicted and continue to inflict severe and ongoing emotional, and economic damage on both plaintiffs.


“I want the defendants to know that my daughter and I are real people who deserve justice,” Freeman said in a statement, “and I never want them to do this to anyone else.”
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Sun Dec 05, 2021 9:38 am

Part 1 of 3

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ST. LOUIS CITY, MISSOURI
TWENTY-SECOND JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
RUBY FREEMAN and WANDREA MOSS,
Plaintiffs,
v.
James Hoft, [DELETE], Joseph Hoft [DELETE] and TGP Communications LLC d/b/a The Gateway Pundit,
Serve on: James Hoft [DELETE]
Defendants.

PETITION

Plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, through their attomeys, bring this Petition against Defendants James Hof, Joseph Hoft, and TGP Communications LLC d/b/a The Gateway. Pundit (collectively, “Defendants”.

INTRODUCTION

1. The intentional dissemination of known falsehoods aimed at sowing doubt about the integrity of our elections threatens our very ability to function as a democracy. These falsehoods also destroy the lives of America’s election workers, whose service to our system of government places them in the crosshairs of those who seek to undermine it with their disinformation. Plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss have been the targets of such a campaign of lies, accused by Defendants James Hoft, Joseph Hoft, and The Gateway Pundit of committing ballot fraud to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The lies about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss have not only devastated their personal and professional reputations but instigated a deluge of intimidation, harassment, and threats that has forced them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts, and fear for their physical safety.

2. The Gateway Pundit presents itself as an online news source committed to responsible journalism: “All our content should be true. No value is more important than this.”1 But The Gateway Pundit’s stock in trade is spreading disinformation, including lies about the integrity of the 2020 election. According to NewsGuard, a company that rates journalistic credibility, during the 2020 presidential election The Gateway Pundit regularly featured “false reports, conspiracy theories, and unfounded allegations, with no distinction made between opinions and actual news reports.”2

3. In fact, Defendants are among the leading purveyors of false information in the United States, spreading baseless conspiracy theories and disinformation for fame and fortune. The Gateway Pundit has been identified as the top producer of false content during and after the 2020 presidential election. In the fourth quarter of 2020, The Gateway Pundit raked in ad revenue by achieving 7.2 million shares on social media of its bogus election fraud stories—far more than the social media shares for such national news sites such as The Washington Post, NBC News and NPR.3

4. This action seeks to hold Defendants accountable for just some of their knowing lies—their false and endlessly repeated accusations that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss committed election fraud by, among other things, conspiring to empty the room where they were counting ballots of poll watchers, producing secret “suitcases” full of illegal ballots, and running those ballots through vote counting machines multiple times. In making these false accusations, Defendants apparently drew their inspiration from lawyers for the Trump campaign, who contended on December 3, 2021, that video from a grainy security camera showed unidentified persons counting illegal ballots. Defendants took these unsupported factual assertions and almost immediately published them to millions of readers, subsequently attributing names and additional accusations of criminal fraud against Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss.

5. Within 24 hours, the claims had been publicly and definitively refuted by Georgia elections officials through a detailed explanation of what the misinterpreted video actually showed: no suitcases; no illegal ballots; no voter fraud. Defendants nonetheless repeated and republished the completely fictitious account, month after month, long after it was conclusively shown to be untrue. 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.

6. Defendants’ reports were both false and consequential. They caused Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss to be vilified on social media and subjected to an onslaught of violent, racist threats and harassment of all kinds. At the height of Defendants’ campaign of disinformation, Ms. Freeman, at the recommendation of the FBI, fled her home and did not return for two months. On January 6, 2021, a crowd on foot and in vehicles surrounded Ms. Freeman’s house. Ms. Freeman was forced to shutter her online business when social media became impossible to navigate. Ms. Moss has suffered personal and professional consequences in her ongoing work on Fulton County elections. On at least two occasions, strangers showed up at her grandmother’s home and attempted to push into the house in order to make a “citizens’ arrest.” Fulton County elections’ general email address would forward incoming emails to Ms. Moss and many of her colleagues, filling her workplace with harassing messages.

7. As a result of Defendants’ ongoing campaign, both women are afraid to live normal lives. Ms. Freeman is fearful when she hears her name called in public; Ms. Moss now fears risking even a visit to the grocery store and must get her groceries delivered instead. Defendants have inflicted and continue to inflict severe and ongoing emotional, and economic damage on both plaintiffs.

8. Plaintiffs file this lawsuit to vindicate their reputations and to ensure that other patriotic Americans who step forward to help make our election system function do not likewise become victims of abuse.

PARTIES

9. Plaintiff Ruby Freeman is a natural person and citizen of Georgia. Ms. Freeman worked as a temporary election worker with the Fulton County Registration and Elections Department during the 2020 general election. Her responsibilities as a temporary election worker included verifying signatures as absentee ballots came in, and then preparing absentee ballots for counting and processing.

10. Plaintiff Wandrea “Shaye” Moss is a natural person and citizen of Georgia. Ms. Moss has worked for the Fulton County Registration and Elections Department since 2012. Ms. Moss’s current position with the County is a Registration Officer, and her responsibilities include processing voter applications and assisting voters in person and over the phone. During the 2020 general election, she supervised Fulton County’s absentee ballot operation.

11. Defendant James “Jim” Hoft is a natural person and citizen of Missouri whose principal place of residence is in St. Louis City, Missouri. Jim Hoft is the owner and the sole organizer of TGP Communications LLC. He is the editor of and frequent contributor to a political website and blog called The Gateway Pundit that he created in 2004.

12. Defendant Joseph “Joe” Hoft is a natural person and citizen of Missouri, where he hosts a daily radio show from a studio in Chesterfield, Missouri. He also maintains a residence in Jensen Beach, Florida. He is Jim Hoft’s twin brother. Joe Hoft writes regularly for The Gateway Pundit.

13. Defendant TGP Communications LLC d/b/a The Gateway Pundit (“The Gateway Pundit”) is a limited liability company organized and existing under the laws of Missouri. At all times, The Gateway Pundit was acting by or through its authorized agent(s), employee(s), representative(s) or owner(s). Upon information and belief, The Gateway Pundit publishes its articles and related social media posts from James Hoft’s principal place of residence in St. Louis City, Missouri.

14. The Gateway Pundit has no registered agent. Gregory J. Hickel, the only agent the Gateway Pundit had registered with the Missouri Secretary of State, passed away in 2016, and The Gateway Pundit has not registered another agent.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

15. The Courts of the State of Missouri have personal jurisdiction over all Defendants because all Defendants have published defamatory statements in Missouri, and taken other actions in Missouri, such statements and actions being the subject of this Petition, and accordingly this suit arises out of and relates to Defendants’ contacts with Missouri.

16. This Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over Jim Hoft as he is a resident and domiciliary of Missouri and he committed tortious actions giving rise to this cause of action within Missouri.

17. This Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over Joe Hoft as he is a resident and domiciliary of Missouri, writes for and maintains business contacts with The Gateway Pundit, and, on information and belief, visited Missouri and/or had contacts with this State in connection with the conduct giving rise to this action.

18. This Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over The Gateway Pundit as it is formed within and exists under the laws of Missouri, and it committed tortious actions giving rise to this cause of action within Missouri.

19. Venue is proper in St. Louis City, Missouri, because, pursuant to §508.010 R.S. Mo., in this action for defamation, the plaintiffs were first injured in St. Louis City, the jurisdiction in which the defamation was first published. Additionally, individual defendant Jim Hoft’s principal place of residence is St. Louis City, Missouri.

FACTS

A. The Role, Reach and Reputation of The Gateway Pundit


20. The Gateway Pundit reaches a large audience. A study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University of mainstream and social media coverage during the 2016 presidential race showed that the website was one of the most popular media sources on the right. Between May 1, 2015, and November 7, 2016, the website was the fifthmost popular source on Twitter and the third-most popular source on Facebook (notably, Fox News was the fourth most popular source on Facebook for the same period).4

21. The reach of The Gateway Pundit grew further in the 2020 election cycle. Research by the German Marshall Fund, a non-partisan policy organization, found the site to have been “particularly dominant” during the election, with a ninefold increase in the sharing of its content on Twitter between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the fourth quarter of 2020.5 The report also noted that nine of the website’s ten most popular articles in the fourth quarter of 2020 presented disinformation about voter fraud.

22. In September 2021, The Gateway Pundit had more than 2.8 million unique visitors, making it the eleventh-most-visited U.S. conservative site, according to one assessment.6 More than 650,000 users “like” its Facebook page, while 630,000 users “follow” the page.7 Roughly 98,000 people subscribe to its YouTube channel, and its videos regularly garner thousands of views.8

23. According to published reports, The Gateway Pundit earned as much as $1.1 million in Google Ad revenue between November 2020 and June 2021.9 In February 2021, The Gateway Pundit began offering a subscription service.10

24. Despite its professed allegiance to the truth, The Gateway Pundit regularly publishes false claims. The Berkman Klein Center study identified seven online sources—both left- and right-leaning—that were highly influential on social media, highly partisan, and sometimes explicitly deceptive. Among these, the study stated, “Gateway Pundit is in a class of its own, known for ‘publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.’”11

25. Defendant Jim Hoft has responded derisively to the notion that The Gateway Pundit should verify information before publishing it. After a New Yorker reporter interviewing him in 2017 told Hoft to expect a call from the magazine’s fact-checkers, he responded: “Oh yeah, just like at the Gateway Pundit. We’ve got a huge department of full-time fact-checkers.” He then “laughed so hard that he nearly spilled his lemonade.”12

B. The 2020 Election in Fulton County, Georgia

26. In the fall of 2020, Americans cast ballots in the nation’s 59th presidential election, which pitted the incumbent, Republican Donald J. Trump, against the former Vice President, Democrat Joseph R. Biden. News coverage in the lead-up to Election Day noted that Georgia had “emerged as one of the nation’s biggest electoral battlegrounds in the race for the White House.”13

27. The voting process in Georgia began on September 15, 2020, when local officials began mailing out absentee ballots. Voters could cast early voting ballots in-person from October 12, 2020 until October 30, 2020, and they could vote by mail until Election Day, on November 3, 2020. All told, more than 4 million Georgians cast ballots during early voting or via absentee ballot in the 2020 election.14 On Election Day, when another 975,540 people cast votes,15 Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger observed, “We are having a successful election in Georgia today.”16

28. In Fulton County, absentee ballots were counted in State Farm Arena. Plaintiffs were employed to assist in the vote tabulation process at the arena.

29. On November 3, 2020, an overflowing urinal at State Farm Arena led to a brief voluntary evacuation of the affected area.17 According to a press release at the time:

At approximately 6:07 a.m., the staff at State Farm Arena notified Fulton County Registration & Elections of a water leak affecting the room where absentee ballots were being tabulated. The State Farm Arena team acted swiftly to remediate the issue. Within 2 hours, repairs were complete. No ballots were damaged, nor was any equipment affected. There was a brief delay in tabulating absentee ballots while the repairs were being conducted.18


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on November 3 that a pipe break had caused a water leak at the ballot processing site and specifically noted that no ballots were damaged.19 It was later determined that the water leak had been caused by an overflowing urinal.20

30. On November 13, 2020, NBC and CNN declared Biden the projected winner of Georgia.21

31. From November 11 through November 19, 2020, county election officials carried out a risk-limiting audit, which included a full manual tally of all votes cast and confirmed Biden had won Georgia’s election.22 “Audit boards from all 159 Georgia countries examined 41[,]881 batches, hand-sorting and counting each ballot as part of the process, which was the largest hand count of ballots in United States history.” According to the audit, “no individual county showed a variation in margin larger than 0.73%.” Moreover, “103 of the 159 counties showed a margin variation of less than 0.05%.”23 It concluded that “the correct winner was reported.”24

32. On November 20, 2020, Secretary of State Raffensperger certified Biden’s victory. That same day, Republican governor Brian Kemp certified Georgia’s election results.25

33. President Trump requested a recount, which was conducted using scanners that read and tally the votes.26 The recount was the third tally of votes in the Georgia presidential race and the third tally to conclude that Joe Biden won the election. On December 7, 2020, Georgia officials recertified Biden’s victory of the state’s 16 electoral votes.27

C. Trump’s Legal Team Initiates the Lie That Georgia Election Workers Illegally Instructed Observers to Leave and Counted Thousands of Fraudulent Ballots Unobserved

34. On December 3, 2020, Donald Trump’s legal team testified before the Georgia State Senate, alleging that fraud and misconduct had occurred during Georgia’s November 2020 election.28

35. In an attempt to demonstrate that there had been irregularities in ballot-counting, a lawyer for the Trump campaign named Jacki Pick played cherry-picked snippets of surveillance video of the absentee and military vote count at the State Farm Arena.29 While the surveillance video of the vote counting on November 3 is 14 hours long, Ms. Pick played only a few brief excerpts during her 17-minute testimony.

36. While playing the video excerpts for the State Senate, Ms. Pick provided her own interpretation of what was being shown. She claimed that Republican observers had been asked to leave the arena in contravention of Georgia law and that, once they were gone, the election workers produced and counted 18,000 hidden, fraudulent ballots—more than the margin of victory in the presidential race.30

37. Ms. Pick described the surveillance videotape as showing Republican observers and the press leaving the room shortly before 11 p.m. after a “lady who has blonde braids” asked them to leave and told them that election workers were going to stop counting ballots for the day. The surveillance video had no sound to corroborate this claim, but Ms. Pick said she had been provided this information by the observers and noted that the video showed four election workers staying while observers and press departed. She identified the election workers in the room as “the lady in purple,” “two women in yellow,” and “the lady with the blonde braids also, who told everyone to leave.”31

38. Ms. Pick’s commentary continued as she played her video excerpt: “Once everyone is gone, coast is clear, they are going to pull ballots out from underneath a table.” Ms. Pick said it was not typical to store “suitcases” full of ballots under a table and pointed out a table which she claimed had been placed there earlier in the day by “the lady with the blonde braids.” Ms. Pick did not identify the four election workers by name but said “one of them had the name Ruby across her shirt somewhere.”32

39. Ms. Pick acknowledged that the Trump legal team had taken only a couple of hours to review the 14 hours of surveillance footage, and no one working for the campaign had watched the entire video, even once.33

40. Both the Georgia Secretary of State and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation immediately investigated Ms. Pick’s claims. The Secretary of State is a Republican who had been endorsed during his campaign by Donald Trump. They reviewed the security videotape, interviewed all witnesses who were present at the time of the alleged misconduct, and found no evidence whatsoever to substantiate any of Ms. Pick’s claims.34

41. Secure the Vote, a website maintained by the office of the Secretary of State, provides a detailed fact check of Ms. Pick’s claims about what is depicted in the video.35 Secure the Vote’s timeline documents the events from November 3, 2020, actually shown on the video, including:

5:22 a.m. Workers arrive at the State Farm Arena and discover a water leak. They immediately move tables and ballots away from the leak to prevent any water damage.

6:30 a.m. Workers can be seen moving tables, but not tampering with ballots.

7:11 a.m. Workers are seen vacuuming and drying the floors.

8:22 a.m. Workers begin rearranging the room to its original layout. They move tables and ballot containers. The table under which a “suitcase” full of ballots was allegedly stashed is moved, revealing nothing hidden there.

9:57 p.m. Poll workers prepare to stop work for the night and empty ballot containers are brought into the room. Workers then fill the containers with uncounted ballots.

10:06 p.m. Poll workers store the containers with uncounted ballots under the table for the night while there are still many people in the room.

11:02 p.m. After the Secretary of State36 told poll workers they should continue working through the night, they remove the containers with uncounted ballots from underneath the table and resume their counting.


D. Defendants Publish and Republish the Lie

42. Immediately after Ms. Pick spoke in the Georgia Senate on December 3, 2020, the false accusation of wrongdoing and misleading excerpts from the surveillance video were circulated widely by the Trump campaign and various media outlets. For example, One America News Network rebroadcast the surveillance video shown earlier that day by the Trump lawyers with Ms. Pick’s commentary.37

43. The Trump campaign promptly amplified and republished a brief excerpt from the One America News Network’s coverage38 and distributed it repeatedly on Twitter that same day.39 The excerpt depicted four individuals walking between desks while one individual removes containers from underneath a table in the foreground and brings them back to the desks. The individuals then remove ballots from the containers and process them.40 (This edited footage from the surveillance video will hereafter be called the “Trump Edited Video.”)

44. That same day, December 3, 2020, The Gateway Pundit published its first article disseminating the same Trump Edited Video. The story was promoted under the headline “HUGE! Video Footage From Georgia Shows Suitcases Filled with Ballots Pulled From Under Table AFTER Supervisor Told GOP Poll Workers to Leave Tabulation Center.” Written by Cristina Laila, the article republished two Team Trump tweets about the video and added the following claims:

Poll watchers were kicked out of the State Farm Arena tabulation center on election night after a burst pipe caused flooding.



We now know that a pipe never burst. It was all a lie in order to kick out poll watchers while a few crooks stayed behind to count illegal ballots for Joe Biden.

Trump’s legal team showed a video from the State Farm Arena tabulation center when poll workers were told to leave at 10:25 PM.

A few “workers” stayed behind and were seen pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables to be tabulated!41


45. The article concludes with a photo captioned, “Close up photo of the suitcases being wheeled out from under tables.”42

Image

46. Defendant Jim Hoft amplified this story and its defamatory claims using his Twitter account.43

47. A little while later, Hoft again amplified the story and added additional defamatory remarks, calling Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss “dirty Crooks” and insinuating that they were political operatives:44

Image
Jim Hoft @gatewaypundit Dec 3
Thanks @TheDemocrats for turning America into a Banana Republic! Yeah, F**k You for Doing this to US.
SUITCASES OF FRAUDULENT BALLOTS!
Nice work you dirty Crooks!!


48. In the afternoon on December 3, The Gateway Pundit published another article, titled, “WHERE’S BILL BARR? — We Got Your Voter Fraud AG Barr — It’s On Video and They Attempted to Steal Georgia with It! — HOW ABOUT A FEW ARRESTS?”45 It accused those in the video of “stay[ing] behind to count illegal ballots for Joe Biden” and “cheating”:

We now know that a pipe never burst. It was all a lie in order to kick out poll watchers while a few crooks stayed behind to count illegal ballots for Joe Biden.

Trump’s legal team showed a video from the State Farm Arena tabulation center when poll workers were told to leave at 10:25 PM.

A few “workers” stayed behind and were seen pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables to be tabulated!

They were caught cheating!


49. Later on December 3, The Gateway Pundit published another article repeating the false report, headlined “What’s Up, Ruby?… BREAKING: Crooked Operative Filmed Pulling Out Suitcases of Ballots in Georgia IS IDENTIFIED.” Written by Defendant Jim Hoft, this article reasserted the false claims about “crooked Democrats” engaging in “voter fraud.”46

50. This article was the first to identify by name Plaintiff Ruby Freeman as one of the workers in the video, naming Ms. Freeman and her business and falsely accusing her of voter fraud. It stated:

One woman in the video is wearing a purple top.



Her name is Ruby Freeman.

And she made the mistake of advertising her purse on her desk the same night she was involved in voter fraud on a MASSIVE SCALE.

Her T-shirt says “Lady Ruby” and her purse says, “LaRuby” which is her company.

This was not a very smart move.

Her company is called “LaRuby’s Unique Treasures.”

It’s on her LinkedIn page!



Maybe the Georgia police or Bill Barr’s DOJ may want to pay Ruby Freeman a visit.47


51. The article concluded with the following images of Ms. Freeman, over a banner saying “CROOK GETS CAUGHT.”

Image
CROOK GETS CAUGHT


52. Defendants Jim and Joe Hoft amplified this story on Twitter, too.48

E. Despite Prompt and Authoritative Refutation of the False Report by Multiple Sources, Defendants Republish and Magnify the Lies for Months

53. The Trump legal team’s claim of voter fraud in the State Farm Arena was flatly, fully, and publicly repudiated by Georgia election officials within 24 hours after it was made. At 6:41 a.m. on December 4, 2020, the Voting Implementation Manager for the State of Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, shot down the fanciful claim on Twitter: “The 90 second video of election workers at State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by @GaSecofState investigators. Shows normal ballot processing. Here is the fact check on it.”49

54. Mr. Sterling’s tweet shared a link to a fact check published by Lead Stories, a fact-checking website that identifies false or misleading stories. It demonstrated that the Trump Edited Video did not show suitcases full of ballots being pulled from under a table, and that poll watchers were not told to leave.50 The fact check quotes Georgia election officials explaining that the containers in the video contained ballots that were processed for counting earlier in the night, that the vote count data and voter verifications negated the claim that thousands of fraudulent ballots had been introduced into the count, and that it was not illegal for election workers to count ballots in the observers’ absence.51

55. Several days earlier, after reports of harassment and death threats against election officials, Mr. Sterling had made clear what he believed were the likely consequences of the continued attacks on Georgia’s election system. “Someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed,” he had stated in a news conference.52

56. Nonetheless, Jim Hoft authored another article published on The Gateway Pundit later that morning under the title “BREAKING: CROOKED GEORGIA ELECTIONS SUPERVISER [sic] Filmed Pulling Out Suitcases of Ballots from Beneath Table IS IDENTIFIED — IT’S RUBY’S DAUGHTER! (Video).” The article repeated the now-debunked allegations from the night before and introduced new false claims:

Earlier on Thursday Cristina Laila reported on the explosive video that was revealed during the Georgia ballot counting at the State Farm Arena where crooked Democrats pulled out suitcases full of ballots and began counting those ballots without election monitors in the room.

Trump’s legal team showed a video from the State Farm Arena tabulation center when poll workers were told to leave at 10:25 PM.

A few “workers” stayed behind and were seen pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables to be tabulated!



We identified one of the operatives last night who was caught on video counting illegal ballots from a suitcase stashed under a table!

As you can see from the video one woman in a purple top was filmed helping pull out the ballots and then sitting down to count the ballots.

That woman has now been identified.

Local 11 News covered the story from the State Farm Arena that a pipe had burst.

(This later was proven to be complete fraud and an excuse to kick out the GOP election observers!)



Her name is Ruby Freeman.

And she made the mistake of advertising her purse on her desk the same night she was involved in voter fraud on a MASSIVE SCALE.



Ruby’s purse was a hit and several fans wrote her on her LinkedIn page after they saw her and her purse on TV.

They then commented on her LinkedIn page.

Ruby Freeman still has an active Facebook page (as of 11 PM on Thursday night).

On her page Ruby Freeman brags about her “Shaye” being her supervisor.

It is clear from a video that was released that Shaye and Ruby are very close.

Here are a few entries from Ruby’s Facebook page.



Ruby made a post on Facebook on Nov 3, “Look at my Baby giving that look to the employees. Mommie is so proud of you. Supervisor of registration.”

And here is a closeup of the woman in question via a Getty image.

Her official name is “Wandrea Moss.”



You can clearly see “Shaye” the woman in blonde pigtails removing suitcases of ballots from under a table after GOP observers were evacuated from the room and told to go home.53


57. The same morning, Georgia Public Broadcasting published its own article factchecking the election fraud claims made during the George State Senate hearing on the previous day. The article directly refuted the Trump legal team’s claims concerning the contents of the Trump Edited Video. It reported that the video showed a normal tabulation process, which both state and county officials had verified. It also reported that no observers had been asked to leave, but Republican monitors and the press did leave when some election employees stopped their work for the night. And it clarified that Georgia law does not require poll monitors to be present for the ballot counting process.54

58. Defendants learned of the ongoing fact checks almost immediately after they were published.

59. Less than two hours after Voting Implementation Manager Sterling tweeted that what the video of Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss showed was “normal ballot processing,” Defendant Joe Hoft published an article titled, “CLOWN SHOW: Georgia Election Insider Gabriel Sterling Freaks Out and Labels Election Fraud Caught on Camera ‘Normal Ballot Processing.’” Rather than acknowledge the falsity of The Gateway Pundit’s earlier stories—or even neutrally reporting on the fact checks, that article lobbed a series of ad hominem attacks against Mr. Sterling and doubled down on Defendants’ false claims, including the statement:

Unfortunately for Sterling, we can’t even keep up with the amount of corruption in Georgia related to this year’s election. Yesterday for example, a video was unearthed by the Trump team showing Democrat counters in Atlanta pulling out suitcases full of ballots and counting them after sending Republicans home due to a falsely reported water main break (um, this is against the law Mr. Sterling). But Sterling still wants to call it all a lie. He claims there was no corruption in this year’s election and he shares another totally bogus ‘fact check’ from Lead Stories as in his Facebook page as support that this is all normal.55


60. Even after acknowledging the first fact check, and after the second fact check was published and available online, Jim Hoft published another article on The Gateway Pundit on December 4, 2020, repeating and realleging the false claims that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss secretly brought illicit ballots into the arena to be counted and had committed massive voter fraud. This article was titled “NEW VIDEO Shows Anti-Trump Georgia Ballot Counter Ruby Freeman with Piles of Ballots, Walking Past Boxes of Ballots, Working Alone in Cubes WITH NO GOP OBSERVERS IN SIGHT!” and made new false and defamatory claims about Ms. Freeman:

Now there is video of Ruby Freeman filming herself entering the building to count Georgia ballots.

Ruby walks by several boxes of ballots just sitting around in the room.

The elections workers were each given their own secret cube. Then Ruby goes to her desk and pulls out a tray of ballots on her desk.

There is NO supervisor or GOP observer anywhere in sight.

And then Ruby leaves the ballots on her desk as she goes to take a break.

This is suspicious activity. The State Farm Center was full of unsecured ballots and illegal conduct.56


61. Jim and Joe Hoft amplified this story using their Twitter accounts.57

62. Seeking to magnify the false claims and gain still more shares on social media, Jim Hoft published a third article on The Gateway Pundit on December 4, repeating the false and disproven claims from his earlier articles. This article was titled, “UPDATE: More on the Suitcase Vote Scam, the Elections Supervisor and that Strange ‘Pass’ Between Mother and Daughter That Was Also Caught on Video.” It discussed the relationship between Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss and introduced a new baseless allegation of still more illicit activity supposedly shown on the Trump Edited Video:

On her [Facebook] page Ruby Freeman brags about her “Shaye” being her supervisor.



And now there is video of Ruby secretly passing something to her daughter during the ballot counting.

It is not clear what was passed. Some readers say it was a USB stick but it is not clear what they passed to each other.

It sure looks like they were trying to hide this transaction.58


63. This article made clear Defendants’ ill-will toward Ms. Freeman in repeating the false claims against her over and over again. In it, Jim Hoft noted the consequences of The Gateway Pundit’s publicity on Ms. Freeman and implicitly urged readers to harass her:

Ruby’s purse was a hit and several fans wrote her on her LinkedIn page after they saw her and her purse on TV.

They then commented on her LinkedIn page.

Note: Please do not confuse this with a similar business in Snellville!

Ruby Freeman had an active Facebook page last night.

It was shut down early on Friday morning.59


64. Jim Hoft amplified this story on social media.60

65. At approximately 10:08 a.m. ET, Voting Implementation Manager Gabe Sterling joined Newsmax for a roughly 17-minute segment.61 After playing a clip of the Trump Campaign’s footage and soliciting comments from another guest, the host asked Sterling to weigh in on the video. Sterling straightforwardly debunked any claim that the video showed anything nefarious:

Unlike watching 90 seconds of it like we saw in the Senate hearing yesterday, we’ve had our investigators watch all many several hours of it yesterday. And what essentially happened is—and we knew about this, part of this, on election night itself—around 10:15/10:20, there’s two groups of people in this room that are working. There are cutters—the people who are opening the envelopes—and then there’s the people who are scanning, which is the ones we see on the video.

And let’s keep a few things in mind. I’ve been in this room. It’s really obvious there’s video cameras everywhere, so they know they’re being watched on that front.

So what happened was, when the cutters were—they were, once they were done, they were, they was like, “Okay, we’re done, time to go home,” and the media started packing up. And then the monitors kept packing up.

Now the one thing we have is that he said she said, where the officials there said, “we didn’t tell anybody that they had to leave.” The people who left—the Republican monitor said, “we were told we had to leave.” And we have no audio from those videotapes to ascertain the absolute truth. That’s what is he said she said on that front.

But when you watch the video, the process—those aren’t suitcases. Those are regular absentee carriers used in dozens of counties across the state. That’s how they bring those in. Nothing was brought in without the monitors there, so everything was there. There was nothing new brought in. We didn’t see somebody wheeling stuff into the room; we saw stuff that was already in the room that the monitors already saw brought in.

And then you saw the processes they’re doing. Essentially what happened, the elections director called the absentee coordinator that’s saying we’re not shutting down. Tell them they gotta go get back to work because the counting people thought they were also getting to go home. So they were kind of disappointed. So you see him on his phone. He walks over to them, they kind of shrug their shoulders like, “crap, we got to go back to work again.” So, so they started doing that, and then we found out that the monitors weren’t there anymore. So, we called their elections directors, and we called our state elections board monitor, who we have placed in Fulton County under a consent decree that we had ordered because of their screw-ups in the June election, and yes, there was 82 minutes where there wasn’t a person there. But we have all the videotape that we are literally looking at right now.

We have to ask ourselves in that period of time, I think it was about three to five thousand votes that were scanned, and did this elections crew of, you know, medium-paid, tired elections workers suddenly become the Ocean’s Eleven crew as part of a theft of an election? Or is it more likely they were tired and irritated?

You see when the SEB monitor gets there, and when the investigator gets there, the armed investigator, they keep doing the exact same thing they were doing. They don’t even pay any mind because it’s just—they’re doing their regular processes.

And the problem we have is people don’t understand this, and when people whip people’s emotions up, it goes back to the issue I was talking about before of threats being against these thousands of workers across the country.


66. On information and belief, Jim Hoft watched this segment, as he immediately criticized Newsmax for airing the segment and reiterated his false claims:62

Image
Jim Hoft
@gatewaypundit
VERY DISAPPOINTING to Go on @Newsmax and Allow @GabrielSterling to LASH OUT AT REPUBLICANS after EXPLOSIVE SUITCASE FRAUD EXPOSED! That Segment was a TRAINWRECK! @Newsmax better get their sh*t together. This was an OUTRAGEOUS Segment!
7:26 AM Dec 4, 2020


67. Not satisfied with the harm done, Defendants published another article about Ms. Freeman on The Gateway Pundit later on December 4. Written by Joe Hoft, this article summarized the false and already debunked claims in the three previous articles by Jim Hoft, and it advanced the new false and defamatory smear that Ms. Freeman supposedly counted the same votes for Biden three times. Titled “UNBELIEVABLE: Anti-Trump Democrat In Georgia ‘Suitcase Scandal’ Caught Running Same Batch of Ballots Through Tabulator THREE TIMES! (VIDEO),” the article stated:

The mother – daughter team of ballot counters in Atlanta really overdid their fraud. We saw last night how they stuck around and counted ballots after kicking Republicans out of the State Farm Center on a fake water main break hoax.

We also saw the mother and daughter pass an object the size of a thumb drive between each other in a suspicious manner[.]

Now we have evidence mother Ruby sent the same stack of votes through a tabulator in the State Farm Center three times. This is illegal.

The corrupt Republican politicians in Georgia are giving the election to Joe Biden. Besides them, nobody did more to steal the election for Joe Biden than this mother – daughter combo. The good people in Georgia need to stand up.63


68. Defendants later boasted that they originated the false and defamatory claim that Ms. Freeman tabulated the same votes three times.64

69. On December 4, PolitiFact—a non-profit website that checks the accuracy of claims made by elected officials and others—published another fact check of the claim repeatedly made by The Gateway Pundit that video footage from Georgia showed suitcases filled with ballots being illegally counted after election monitors were told to leave. The PolitiFact article confirmed the conclusions of Lead Stories and Georgia Public Broadcasting that the claim was plainly false. It featured a statement from Richard Barron, the elections director in Fulton County, who confirmed that no announcement was made telling people to leave. Rather, certain staff members left as their work was finished. Mr. Barron himself told the workers scanning the ballots to keep working. Mr. Barron also confirmed that it was normal to keep containers under the tables near the scanners.65

70. Two days later, on December 6, 2020, after the Defendants’ statements had been thoroughly refuted by multiple state and county officials, Defendants published two more articles in The Gateway Pundit. The articles purported to disclose “exclusive” new information about the “man in red” shown in the security video, and each repeated the false claims that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss were involved in “voter corruption”:

]quote] [I]t was uncovered that a mother and daughter team, Ruby Freeman and her daughter “Shaye” Moss as well as a couple others, stuck around after sending everyone home and started running ballots through tabulators. Ballots were pulled out from under a table that were previously covered up and processed with no Republican observers.

The mother - daughter team have become infamous in the annals of voter corruption[.]66[/quote]

71. Jim Hoft amplified this story on Twitter.67

72. Also on December 6, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp filed in federal court a sworn affidavit from Frances Watson, chief investigator for the Georgia Secretary of State, further refuting these lies. Gov. Kemp filed this affidavit in Pearson v. Kemp, Civ. No. 1:20-cv- 04809-TCB (N.D. Ga), in response to claims by a group of Presidential Electors for Trump of widespread election-related misconduct. The affidavit detailed the results of an investigation by Ms. Watson into the alleged events at the State Farm Arena. Ms. Watson attested that her investigative team interviewed witnesses and reviewed the entire security footage. Her investigation found that (a) observers and members of the press were not told to leave, but exited the room after seeing a group of workers responsible for opening envelopes leave; and (b) no ballots were brought in from an unknown location and hidden under a table. She also stated that the video showed opened but uncounted ballots being placed in boxes and stored under the table, and later showed the boxes being opened so the workers could scan the ballots when the counting resumed later that night.68

73. The Watson affidavit’s submission and its content were widely reported in the press on December 6 and 7, 2020.69

74. Nonetheless, Jim Hoft published two more articles early on December 7 containing additional false and defamatory statements about Plaintiffs. The first labeled Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss “suspects in the suitcase ballot fraud at the State Farm Center” and said they were captured on the “most explosive video of the entire campaign season” pulling “hidden ballots in the suitcases” out and counting them “after all of the GOP observers and media was sent home for a ‘water main’ break.” It then mocked Ms. Freeman for supposedly saying she “needed a lawyer” and declining an interview request by “Carolyn Ryan TV.”70

75. Jim Hoft amplified this article on Twitter.71

76. In a second article on December 7, 2020, Jim Hoft blasted out the “HUGE” news that the third “suspect” in the “suitcase scandal” was the same man who told reporters there had been a “water main break.” The article depicted the claim of a water problem as clever ruse to facilitate election fraud by plaintiffs:

We know this was a lie because there was NEVER a work order filed and the water department never received a call.

It never happened!

But it gave Ralph and Ruby and Shaye cover to complete their scam on Georgia and America!72


77. Jim Hoft amplified this story on Twitter.73

78. In a news conference on December 7, Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s Voting Implementation Manager, once more refuted the lies about the Trump Edited Video that The Gateway Pundit was continuing to spread. He yet again confirmed that the surveillance video showed that the containers taken from under a table held valid, uncounted ballots that had been stored by workers who thought they were leaving for the night. After realizing that they were staying, the workers unpacked the ballots from the containers and resumed scanning them. Mr. Sterling specifically refuted the claim that election workers had scanned the same ballots multiple times, explaining that any such action would have been revealed by the hand count undertaken by Georgia election officials and machine-based recount requested by the Trump campaign. Neither recount showed a meaningful change in results originally reported.74

79. In the evening on December 7, Jim Hoft further evidenced Defendants’ awareness of the fact checks, sharing a link to an article in The Federalist discussing the various factchecks:

Image
Jim Hoft @gatewaypundit 5h
Excellent! The Georgia Vote-Counting Video Was Not "Debunked.' Not Even Close
The Georgia Vote-Counting Video Was Not 'Debunked.' Not even Close. A "fact" 'checking' outfit claimed to debunk explosive evidence for Republicans' claims of significant election problems in Georgia. It ... thefederalist.com


80. Nonetheless, with full awareness that his statements about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss had been flatly and fully refuted by multiple officials and multiple fact-checking organizations, Jim Hoft continued to publish false statements on The Gateway Pundit.

81. On December 8, 2020, Jim Hoft published three new articles repeating and doubling down on the false and defamatory claims. The first article was titled “CONFIRMED: Supervisor Shaye Moss - Who “Yelled Out” for Georgia GOP Observers to GO Home - Is Same Woman Who Pulled the Suitcase Ballots Out from Underneath the Table When they Left.” In addition to repeating previously made false claims about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, it stated:

Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist reported earlier today that poll watchers in sworn affidavits claim it was “a woman with blonde braids” who appeared to be a supervisor “yelled out” to those present in the room that they would stop working for the night and would resume in the morning.

Shaye told everyone to go home.

Then Shaye, her mother and a couple others including Ralph Jones, Sr. were filmed taking “suitcases” of ballots hidden under a table out to be tabulated. This was right before Joe Biden got his surprise spike in ballots.

And now the liberal media and their fake “fact-checkers” are lying about the incredible incident caught on video!76


82. Jim Hoft’s second article on December 8 was titled, “NOW WITH AUDIO: Georgia Election Official Ralph Jones, Sr. Announced on Nov. 3rd Evening that Counting would Stop at 11 PM — Then Led Team to Count Stashed ‘Suitcase” Ballots.” This article noted both the Pearson v. Kemp affidavit, which stated that the count was never intended to stop at 10:00 p.m., and Mr. Sterling’s statement that counting was resumed at 11:00 p.m. It stated:

Ralph led a team of operatives in carrying out a massive voter fraud scandal on election night at the State Farm Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ralph and his team plotted to remove ALL elections observers (Republicans) from the counting room so they could roll out their suitcases full of Joe Biden ballots and run them through the machine.



For the record — Georgia anti-Trump elections official Gabe Sterling later said that the local officials called for the counting to resume at 11 PM but this is just not true.



The elections officials used the “water main break” to say there was a delay in counting and they used that to send people home — except for the suitcase gang.

Then Ralph Jones, Sr., Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Ross went to work rolling out the hidden suitcases of ballots stashed under the table and hidden from view.

It was their actions that gave Joe Biden the spike in unexplained votes in Georgia on Wednesday morning.

It appears that this was a conspiracy to remove observers from the center and then to commit their hidden suitcase ballot fraud.



The lying fake news media wants you to believe this entire incident was debunked.

Nothing could be further from the truth — something that is lacking in the mainstream media and their “fact-checkers” today.

We now have actual audio of Ralph Jones — the elections official at the heart of the “suitcase scandal” telling government officials the State Farm Center will shut down at 10 or 11 PM on Election night!

Georgia Secretary of State officials released an affidavit insisting there never was an intent to stop the count at 10:00 PM, but only the cutters were going to stop.77


83. Jim Hoft authored a third article that same day to discredit the fact check organization Lead Stories, one of the several outside groups that had found the “suitcase scandal” to be no scandal at all. He sought to undermine their credibility by writing: “Lead Stories we now know is funded by Facebook and a Chinese company. So it makes sense that they would target any conservative outlet that reported on this explosive video.”78 He used the occasion to repeat yet again the false claim that plaintiffs had “stayed behind and were seen pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables to be tabulated after the GOP inspectors and media left the room,” in a pre-planned conspiracy to commit election fraud.

84. Jim Hoft amplified each of these stories on Twitter.79

85. Defendants’ false and defamatory tirade targeting Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss continued later that same month. On December 23, 2020, Jim Hoft published an article repeating a tweet posted by Team Trump the day before. This article was titled “Has the FBI Spoken with Ruby Freeman or Ralph Jones Yet? And If Not, Why in the Hell Do we Have an FBI?” It repeated prior false and defamatory claims about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss published on The Gateway Pundit, boasting of the publication’s leading role in spreading the misinformation:

On Tuesday night President Trump tweeted out an OANN report on a Gateway Pundit investigation of the Atlanta suitcase voter fraud scandal.

The Gateway Pundit was first to identify Ruby Freeman, her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and their boss Ralph Jones, Sr. in the infamous suitcase ballot hoist [sic].

We later reported on Ruby Freeman running the same batch of ballots through the counting machines at least three times after these Democrat operatives cleared the room of observers!

On Tuesday night President Trump tweeted this OANN and Gateway Pundit video.

Image
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Team Trump (Text TRUMPT to 88022)
ELECTIONS FRAUD
POLL WORKER IN FULTON COUNTY, GA, CAUGHT ON CAMERA SCANNING SAME STACK OF BALLOTS MULTIPLE TIMES.
5:08 pm 22 Dec 2020


Shaye Moss is the same person who called out for observers to go home late on election night before the ballot hoist.

Ralph Jones, Sr. is ON AUDIO telling reporters he was going to shut down the State Farm Center early and send observers home. This was BEFORE the suitcase ballot hoist [sic]!

It was a carefully planned event!

They had NO IDEA they would get caught!

At this time there is no evidence that FBI or the Georgia Bureau of Investigations have interviewed or arrested Ruby Freeman, Shaye Ross, or Ralph Jones, Sr.

They were able to flip Georgia for Beijing Biden by their actions.

Why is the FBI or DOJ not involved?

This tells you everything you need to know about your federal government.80


86. Jim Hoft amplified this story on Twitter.81

87. On January 2, 2021, Donald Trump placed a telephone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Raffensperger to change the outcome of the Georgia presidential election by finding more votes for him. To justify his request, Mr. Trump repeated some of the many false allegations about Ms. Freeman that Defendants had been publishing throughout December. These include statements calling her “a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler,” and asserting, “we’re so far ahead of these numbers, even the phony ballots of Ruby Freeman — known scammer.”82

88. The next day, Jim Hoft published an article on The Gateway Pundit about this phone call. The article’s headline announced, “HUGE: TRUMP DROPS A BOMB DURING PHONE CALL! Tells Raffensperger ‘Vote Scammer and Hustler’ Ruby Freeman Was Behind Alleged 18,000 FRAUDULENT VOTES in Suitcase Scandal! (VIDEO).” The article republished the portion of the call’s transcript when Mr. Trump made the accusation of election fraud that defendants had been publishing repeatedly since December 3, and it inserted Ms. Freeman’s name where it had been omitted by The Washington Post, which had broken the story about the call. It stated:

President Trump: We have at least 18,000, that’s on tape. We had them counted very painstakingly. 18,000 voters having to [sic] with BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman). She’s a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler. BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman) that is the tape that is shown all over the world. It makes everybody look bad, you, me and everybody else. Number one, they said very clearly, and it’s been reported that they said that there’s a water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back. BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman) and her daughter and a few people.83


89. The article then reminded readers of The Gateway Pundit that it “was first to identify Ruby Freeman, her daughter Shaye Moss and supervisor Ralph Jones, Sr. in the suitcase fraud scandal that was caught on tape and went viral online.”84

90. Jim Hoft amplified this story on Twitter.85

91. On January 4, 2021, Georgia election officials held yet another press conference to refute the already-debunked election fraud allegations that Mr. Trump had raised in his call with Mr. Raffensperger.86 Gabriel Sterling once again described the events that occurred on election day at State Farm Arena, explained how they represented entirely normal ballot processing, and directed listeners to the Georgia’s Secretary of State’s website for a detailed timeline matched to the surveillance footage.87 Sterling reiterated for the assembled reporters the actual series of events:

Late in the evening, after the water main break had been fixed, election workers prepared to go home for the night and followed standard procedures to store ballots securely: placing them in containers and affixing numbered seals. But when Mr. Raffensperger found out that they were closing up shop, he ordered them to continue counting through the night — so the workers retrieved the containers and resumed counting ballots.88


Sterling expressed his great frustration that the Trump legal team “had the entire tape” revealing these facts, and nevertheless “intentionally misled the State Senate, the voters and the people of the United States about this.”89

92. Defendants were well aware Georgia Secretary of State’s website and additional fact check, as evidenced by Jim Hoft’s tweet on January 4, 2021:90

Image
Jim Hoft
@gatewaypundit
Here are the videos of the State Farm Center in Atlanta on Election Day into Election Night -- securevotega.com/factcheck/ - It appears the state officials made them purposely so they take forever to play. If anyone sees anything interesting please let us know.
3:40 PM Jan 4, 2021



93. PolitiFact published a fact-check article about the Raffensperger call that same day, finding that the events described by Mr. Sterling lined up with previous reports from PolitiFact and other fact-checkers. This article repeated PolitiFact’s earlier assessment that the arena surveillance video showed no wrongdoing and provided no evidence of election fraud. It rated Mr. Trump’s claim that Georgia election workers pulled 18,000 ballots from suitcases and counted them for Biden as “Pants on Fire!” false.91

F. The Gateway Pundit’s Continuing Publication of False and Defamatory Claims

94. Nonetheless, Jim Hoft continued to return to his false statements about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss long after Inauguration Day. In June 2021, prompted by an online report that batches of absentee ballots were missing in Fulton County, he published another article replete with baseless and disproven allegations of voter fraud by plaintiffs:

[quoteThis follows news first reported by The Gateway Pundit that election operative Ruby Freeman was also caught tripe [sic] counting stacks of votes late at night at the counting center after GOP observers were sent home.



On December 4th TGP reported with video on anti-Trump ballot counter Ruby Freeman working in a private cube with trays of ballots, walking past open boxes of ballots, working alone with NO ELECTION OBSERVERS IN SIGHT!

This is the DEFINITION OF CHEATING!

The video and tweet was removed from Twitter but we found the video on YouTube and we are saving a copy. [Embedded is a copy of an Instagram video taken by Ms. Freeman in October 2020 that she had removed.]



Now there is video of Ruby Freeman filming herself entering the building to count Georgia ballots.

Ruby walks by several boxes of ballots just sitting around in the room.

The elections workers were each given their own secret cube.

Then Ruby goes to her desk and pulls out a tray of ballots on her desk.

There is NO supervisor or GOP observer anywhere in sight.

And then Ruby leaves the ballots on her desk as she goes to take a break.

This is suspicious activity. The State Farm Center was full of unsecured ballots and illegal conduct.

The Democrat operatives were running a voter fraud factory inside the State Farm Center on Election Day and into Election Week!92[/quote]

95. On August 14, 2021, Joe Hoft published another article on The Gateway Pundit falsely describing how Ms. Freeman, Ms. Moss, and other election workers had been added to a lawsuit against Fulton County alleging election fraud.93 The article republished The Gateway Pundit’s prior defamatory statements about Ms. Freeman and boasted about its role in promulgating and amplifying the false claims:

We first discovered Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss in December when The Gateway Pundit first reported that these two election workers took ballots out from under a table on Election night and jammed thousands of ballots into the tabulators numerous times.

This was after all of the election observers were sent home for the night. This was also after Trump had accumulated what experts said was an insurmountable lead in the state.

We revealed first that the ballots taken out from under tables on Election night were pushed into tabulators up to three times each.



This is not good for Ruby and her daughter.

It’s also pathetic that these two are not in jail already. Their crimes were videotaped!94
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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:19 am

Part 2 of 3

G. Defendants Published the Statements With Knowledge of Their Falsity or Serious Doubts About Their Truth

96. Defendants knew that their statements about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss were not true or had serious doubts about their truth.

97. Defendants were aware of the numerous statements by Georgia officials disproving the portrayal of misconduct that had been advanced by the Trump lawyers, and they also knew that multiple fact-checking organizations had confirmed the facts as presented by the Georgia officials. Defendants disregarded the reliable sources refuting their claims and had no credible basis for the false allegations they continued to make.

98. At no point in publishing their many stories about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss did Defendants ever attempt to contact Plaintiffs to obtain their account of the events being reported. Nor did Defendants contact for corroboration other obvious available sources, and they specifically avoided contacting sources who had evidence to disprove their lies.

99. Defendants ignored the truth because they had a predetermined story in mind that would continue to attract readers—that widespread voter fraud would taint the 2020 presidential election. Even before the vote counting began, defendants cultivated this narrative.95 In November 2020, Defendants published multiple articles focusing on baseless claims of election fraud in several states.96

100. Defendants advanced this predetermined fictitious storyline in the face of the facts because it was financially advantageous to do so. They were motivated to publish lies about Plaintiffs because lying about the election was more profitable than telling the truth.

101. Defendants consciously avoided the truth in order to profit from the repeated publication of scandalous material. The Gateway Pundit’s articles about voter fraud throughout the 2020 election cycle increased its readership, reach, and engagement. Its articles about voter fraud, in particular, performed well, and it earned increased advertising revenue by publishing and republishing such well-performing falsehoods about Plaintiffs.

102. Defendants additionally hoped that repeating their preconceived narrative would affect the outcome of the presidential election.

H. Defendants Caused Substantial Reputational Harm With Their False Statements About Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss That Constitute Defamation Per Se

103. Defendants’ falsely stated or implied that (a) Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss planned and carried out with others a plot to “steal the election” and “flip Georgia” for Joe Biden; (b) Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss helped to fake a water main break that was used as a cover to bring suitcases stuffed with fraudulent ballots into the vote tabulation center; (c) Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss engaged in a criminal conspiracy to exclude observers during the counting of ballots so that they could engage in election fraud; (d) Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss criminally introduced “suitcases” of illegal ballots into the ballot counting process when no observers were present; (e) Ms. Freeman fraudulently triple-counted the same ballots by running them through a tabulator three times; and (f) Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss committed election fraud and other crimes for which they are subject to arrest and imprisonment. These claims are false and constitute defamation per se.

104. Given the nature of Plaintiffs’ employment with the Registration and Elections Department of Fulton County, Defendants’ claims that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss participated in a conspiracy to fraudulently overturn a democratic election would tend to injure them in their trade, office, or profession: A reputation for integrity is a requirement for workers in a profession whose responsibility is to accurately and legitimately tabulate and report elections results while maintaining public confidence in elections.

105. Defendants also stated that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss participated in criminal activity punishable by law. Defendants labeled both Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss as “crooks” and claimed that “nobody did more to steal the election for Joe Biden than this mother-daughter combo.”97 Defendants asserted that the actions of Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss were “illegal” and that “the Georgia police or Bill Barr’s DOJ may want to pay Ruby Freeman a visit.”98

106. Published on a website with nearly three million unique visitors per month, Defendants’ stories did cause and continue to cause substantial reputational harm to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss.

107. Defendants are directly responsible for the reputational harm that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss experienced. Though the initial claims by the Trump legal team were based only on short selections of security footage and did not name any individual Fulton County election workers, “[t]he Gateway Pundit was first to identify Ruby Freeman [and] her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss . . . in the infamous suitcase ballot hoist [sic],” as the Defendants themselves boast.99

I. Impact of Defendants’ Campaign Against Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss

108. Defendants repeatedly published the full names of Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, in addition to numerous images of Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss, the name of Ms. Freeman’s business, and Ms. Freeman’s social media account information. In so doing, Defendants were fully aware that their readers would target Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss in response to their stories. Defendants even urged their readers not to “confuse [Ms. Freeman’s business] with a similar business in Snellville!”100

109. As a direct result of Defendants’ campaign of lies, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss began receiving—almost immediately—an onslaught of extremely violent and graphic threats and dangerous harassment.

Ms. Freeman

110. As Defendants’ false accusations began to spread across the internet, Ms. Freeman received at least 420 emails and seventy-five text messages, including one that read, “We know where you live, we coming to get you.”

111. Ms. Freeman sought intervention from the local police; a local officer answered more than twenty harassing calls on Ms. Freeman’s cell phone. Despite these efforts, Ms. Freeman was ultimately forced to change her phone number and email address.

112. On multiple occasions, strangers camped out at Ms. Freeman’s home and/or knocked on her door. When Ms. Freeman was not home or would not answer the door, these strangers would sometimes also harass her neighbors. Strangers were coming to her home so frequently that the local police agreed to add her address to their patrols of the area.

113. During this time, numerous pizza deliveries showed up at her home that she and her family had never ordered. This is an often-chronicled result of being “doxxed”—the term for when strangers post and share a target’s personal information as a means to organize a coordinated harassment campaign.

114. Christmas cards were mailed to Ms. Freeman’s address with messages like, “Ruby please report to the FBI and tell them you committed voter fraud. If not you will be sorry,” and “You deserve to go to jail, you worthless piece of shit whore.”

115. The level of harassment Ms. Freeman received at her home led the FBI to conclude that she would not be safe in her home on beginning on January 6, 2021, the date of former President Trump’s infamous rally and the subsequent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and continuing at least through Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021.

116. On January 6, 2021, a crowd surrounded Ms. Freeman’s house, some on foot, some in vehicles, others equipped with a bullhorn. Fortunately, Ms. Freeman had followed the FBI’s advice and had temporarily relocated from her home. She was not able to return for two months.

117. Since returning home, Ms. Freeman has had to purchase eleven cameras and three motion sensors in an effort to safeguard her own home.

118. Ms. Freeman was also forced to deactivate the social media pages for herself and her business, Lady Ruby’s Unique Treasures, a pop-up clothing boutique. Though she has long been a local entrepreneur, she was forced to shutter her business when she was unable to attend public events or conduct online marketing through social media.

119. The reputational impacts of Defendants’ lies continue to be felt across Ms. Freeman’s social and professional networks. After being publicly accused of crimes, she has lost friendships.

120. When people recognize her in public and call out her name, Ms. Freeman is fearful. Her experiences over the months since The Gateway Pundit’s defamation campaign began have taught Ms. Freeman to be distrustful of strangers and concerned for her safety.

121. To this day, Ms. Freeman continues to receive threatening communications referencing Defendants’ defamation. On November 13, 2021, she received an email accusing her of treason, insinuating she would soon be serving jail time, and including a link to an article about election fraud in Georgia from The Gateway Pundit.

Ms. Moss

122. The day after The Gateway Pundit’s campaign of falsehoods began, Ms. Moss’s then fourteen-year-old son informed her that numerous calls were coming into Ms. Moss’s old phone, which he was using at the time. When he answered the calls, he was bombarded with racial slurs and threats of violence. One caller stated that her son “should hang alongside [his] nigger momma.”

123. These harassing calls continued for months and were so numerous and disturbing that her son eventually got into the habit of turning the cell phone off. However, the Wi-Fi hotspot feature on the phone was his only method of accessing the internet for school and all of his classes were virtual because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. After months of this abuse, Ms. Moss learned her son had failed multiple classes, and as a result, Ms. Moss had to pay for several summer school courses.

124. Defendants’ defamation also caused Ms. Moss to suffer an onslaught of online harassment. She received dozens of messages through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, many of which threatened violence. These messages did not merely suggest Ms. Moss lose her job but insisted that she deserved to die and would be killed in retribution for her “treason.” She has since deleted her Pinterest and LinkedIn accounts.

125. Because Ms. Moss had previously lived with her grandmother, it was her grandmother’s address that harassers found and exploited. As they did with Ms. Freeman, these harassers repeatedly sent unwanted pizzas to Ms. Moss’s grandmother’s house.

126. On at least two occasions, strangers showed up at her grandmother’s home and attempted to push into the house in order to make a “citizens’ arrest.” On these occasions, Ms. Moss’s grandmother, who is in her mid-seventies, called her in a panic, confused and scared for her safety.

127. The impacts of Defendants’ lies also followed Ms. Moss at work. The general email addresses used by the public to contact the Fulton County elections offices would forward incoming emails to Ms. Moss and many of her colleagues. As a result, Ms. Moss and her colleagues received, directly in their work inboxes, harassing emails sent to those public email addresses.

128. Inspired by the demonstrably false conspiracy theory pushed by Defendants, people have also protested about Ms. Moss outside of her Fulton County workplace, demanding she be fired from her job.

129. This whirlwind of negative attention around Ms. Moss has left her feeling fearful and ashamed in an office where she has worked since 2012. Before the 2020 general election, she generally enjoyed the parts of her job that allowed her to work with and assist the public. Now, even when she is assisting constituents over the phone, she begins to sweat and feel anxious if they ask her name. She is afraid that when people hear her name, they will think she is a fraud and a cheater.

130. Like her mother, Ms. Moss is now fearful whenever people recognize her in public. As a result, Ms. Moss has largely retreated from social and public life. She has gone as far as to avoid the grocery store, opting to have groceries delivered in order to avoid it. She feels trapped by the unshakable fear that there are unknown people after her who want her dead.

131. Over the last year, Ms. Moss has suffered from disrupted sleep and has gained fifty pounds as a result of the stress caused by Defendants’ campaign of lies. The onslaught of threats that Plaintiffs have experienced and the necessary measures they have been forced to take to protect themselves are the direct result of Defendants’ defamatory conduct. Plaintiffs have and will continue to experience serious and severe emotional distress as a result. The harm Defendants have caused to Plaintiffs’ reputations, privacy, safety, and earnings and other pecuniary loss is immense.

J. Plaintiffs’ Cease and Desist Letter and Defendants’ Failure to Retract

132. In an effort to attempt to mitigate the harm caused by the publication of the false statements in Defendants’ stories, Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss engaged legal counsel, Dowd Bennett, LLC, and DuBose Miller, LLC to seek retraction from Defendants.

133. On November 22, 2021, counsel sent Defendants a letter demanding that they retract and take down the numerous defamatory statements they have published and continue to publish about Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss.

134. As of the date of this filing, Defendants have not responded to that letter.

FIRST CLAIM
(Defamation of Ms. Freeman)


135. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all paragraphs preceding and following as if fully set forth herein.

136. Beginning on December 3, 2020, Defendants published a series of false and defamatory statements of fact about Ms. Freeman, including by and through The Gateway Pundit’s own agents making the statements themselves; and by republishing the statements on The Gateway Pundit’s website and social media accounts, and the social media accounts of its agents, as detailed extensively above. Those statements include, but are not limited to, the following nonexhaustive list:

a) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 1:11 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

Poll watchers were kicked out of the State Farm Arena tabulation center on election night after a burst pipe caused flooding.



We now know that a pipe never burst. It was all a lie in order to kick out poll watchers while a few crooks stayed behind to count illegal ballots for Joe Biden.


b) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 1:11 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim seven (7) times on December 3, 2020 at 8:49 p.m.; December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m., 8:53 a.m., and 1:51 p.m.; December 7, 2020 at 7:15 a.m.; and December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m. and 1:11 p.m.101:

A few “workers” stayed behind and were seen pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables to be tabulated!


c) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 8:49 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim six (6) times on December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m., 8:53 a.m., and 1:51 p.m.; December 7, 2020 at 7:15 a.m.; and December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m. and 1:11 p.m.:

Cristina Laila reported on the explosive video that was revealed during the Georgia ballot counting at the State Farm Arena where crooked Democrats pulled out suitcases full of ballots and began counting those ballots without election monitors in the room.


d) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 8:49 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim five (5) times on December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m., 8:53 a.m., and 1:51 p.m.; December 7, 2020 at 7:15 a.m.; and December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m.:

We identified one of the operatives [last/Thursday] night who was caught on video counting illegal ballots from a suitcase stashed under a table!


e) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 8:49 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim four (4) times on December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m., 8:53 a.m., and 1:51 p.m.; and December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m.:

[/quote] As you can see from the video one woman in a purple top was filmed helping pull out the ballots and then sitting down to count the ballots.[/quote]

f) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 8:49 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements, which they republished four (4) times on December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m., 8:53 a.m.,102 and 1:51 p.m.103; and December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m.:

One woman in the video is wearing a purple top.

She later appeared in the suitcase video!

The woman in the purple made a mistake and left her purse on her desk advertising her business.

Her name is Ruby Freeman.

And she made the mistake of advertising her purse on her desk the same night she was involved in voter fraud on a MASSIVE SCALE.

Her T-shirt says “Lady Ruby” and her purse says, “LaRuby” which is her company.

This was not a very smart move.

Her company is called “LaRuby’s Unique Treasures.”

It’s on her LinkedIn page!

Ruby’s purse was a hit and several fans wrote her on her LinkedIn page after they saw her and her purse on TV.

They then commented on her LinkedIn page.104


g) Defendants end their December 3, 2020, article published at 8:49 p.m. with the following false statements:

Maybe the Georgia police or Bill Barr’s DOJ may want to pay Ruby Freeman a visit.



CROOK GETS CAUGHT


h) In their December 4, 2020, article published at 8:53 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements, which they republished verbatim on June 19, 2021 at 8:31 p.m.:

Now there is video of Ruby Freeman filming herself entering the building to count Georgia ballots.

Ruby walks by several boxes of ballots just sitting around in the room.

The elections workers were each given their own secret cube.

Then Ruby goes to her desk and pulls out a tray of ballots on her desk.

There is NO supervisor or GOP observer anywhere in sight.

And then Ruby leaves the ballots on her desk as she goes to take a break.

This is suspicious activity. The State Farm Center was full of unsecured ballots and illegal conduct.


i) In their December 4, 2020, article published at 1:51 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

And now there is video of Ruby secretly passing something to her daughter during the ballot counting.

It is not clear what was passed. Some readers say it was a USB stick but it is not clear what they passed to each other.

It sure looks like they were trying to hide this transaction.


j) In their December 4, 2020, article published at 5:45 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

The mother – daughter team of ballot counters in Atlanta really overdid their fraud. We saw last night how they stuck around and counted ballots after kicking Republicans out of the State Farm Center on a fake water main break hoax.

We also saw the mother and daughter pass an object the size of a thumb drive between each other in a suspicious manner[.]

Now we have evidence mother Ruby sent the same stack of votes through a tabulator in the State Farm Center three times. This is illegal.

The corrupt Republican politicians in Georgia are giving the election to Joe Biden. Besides them, nobody did more to steal the election for Joe Biden than this mother – daughter combo. The good people in Georgia need to stand up.


k) In their December 6, 2020, article published at 9:23 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements, which they republished on December 7, 2020 at 8:29 a.m.:

Next it was uncovered that a mother and daughter team, Ruby Freeman and her daughter “Shaye” Moss as well as a couple others, stuck around after sending everyone home and started running ballots through tabulators. Ballots were pulled out from under a table that were previously covered up and processed with no Republican observers.

The mother – daughter team have become infamous in the annals of voter corruption[.]



l) In their December 7, 2020, article published at 8:29 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements, which they republished on December 8, 2020 at 8:59 a.m.105:

Ralph Jones, Sr. was identified as the third suspect in the Fulton County Georgia suitcase scandal.

** Ralph led a team of operatives in carrying out a massive voter fraud scandal on election night at the State Farm Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

** Ralph and his team plotted to remove ALL elections observers (Republicans) from the counting room so they could roll out their suitcases full of Joe Biden ballots and run them through the machine.

...

They sent everyone home!

...

** The elections officials used the “water main break” to say there was a delay in counting and they used that to send people home — except for the suitcase gang.

** Then Ralph Jones, Sr., Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Ross went to work rolling out the hidden suitcases of ballots stashed under the table and hidden from view.

** It was their actions that gave Joe Biden the spike in unexplained votes in Georgia on Wednesday morning.

** It appears this was a conspiracy to lie to the public including local news, to remove observers from the center and then to commit their hidden suitcase ballot fraud.


m) Defendants end their December 7, 2020, article published at 8:29 a.m. with the following false statements:

We know [the alleged pipe burst at State Farm Arena] was a lie because there was NEVER a work order filed and the water department never received a call.

It never happened!

But it gave Ralph and Ruby and Shaye cover to complete their scam on Georgia and America!


n) In their December 8, 2020, article published at 7:20 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

Shaye told everyone to go home.

Then Shaye, her mother and a couple others including Ralph Jones, Sr. were filmed taking “suitcases” of ballots hidden under a table out to be tabulated. This was right before Joe Biden got his surprise spike in ballots.

And now the liberal media and their fake “fact-checkers” are lying about the incredible incident caught on video!


o) In their December 23, 2020, article published at 8:40 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

The Gateway Pundit was first to identify Ruby Freeman, her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and their boss Ralph Jones, Sr. in the infamous suitcase ballot hoist [sic].

We later reported on Ruby Freeman running the same batch of ballots through the counting machines at least three times after these Democrat operatives cleared the room of observers!

...

Shaye Moss is the same person who called out for observers to go home late on election night before the ballot hoist [sic].

Ralph Jones, Sr. is ON AUDIO telling reporters he was going to shut down the State Farm Center early and send observers home. This was BEFORE the suitcase ballot hoist [sic]!

It was a carefully planned event!

They had NO IDEA they would get caught!

At this time there is no evidence that FBI or the Georgia Bureau of Investigations have interviewed or arrested Ruby Freeman, Shaye Ross, or Ralph Jones, Sr.

They were able to flip Georgia for Beijing Biden by their actions.

Why is the FBI or DOJ not involved?

This tells you everything you need to know about your federal government.


p) In their January 3, 2021, article published at 6:20 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

President Trump: We have at least 18,000, that’s on tape. We had them counted very painstakingly. 18,000 voters having to with BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman). She’s a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler. BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman) that is the tape that is shown all over the world. It makes everybody look bad, you, me and everybody else. Number one, they said very clearly, and it’s been reported that they said that there’s a water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back. BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman) and her daughter and a few people.


q) In their June 19, 2021, article published at 8:31 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

This follows news first reported by The Gateway Pundit that election operative Ruby Freeman was also caught tripe [sic] counting stacks of votes late at night at the counting center after GOP observers were sent home.

It was a carefully planned event!

They had NO IDEA they would get caught!

On December 4th TGP reported with video on anti-Trump ballot counter Ruby Freeman working in a private cube with trays of ballots, walking past open boxes of ballots, working alone with NO ELECTION OBSERVERS IN SIGHT!

This is the DEFINITION OF CHEATING!



The Democrat operatives were running a voter fraud factory inside the State Farm Center on Election Day and into Election Week!


r) In their August 14, 2021, article published at 9:15 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

We first discovered Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss in December when The Gateway Pundit first reported that these two election workers took ballots out from under a table on Election night and jammed thousands of ballots into the tabulators numerous times.

This was after all of the election observers were sent home for the night. This was also after Trump had accumulated what experts said was an insurmountable lead in the state.

We revealed first that the ballots taken out from under tables on Election night were pushed into tabulators up to three times each.



This is not good for Ruby and her daughter.

It’s also pathetic that these two are not in jail already. Their crimes were videotaped!


137. The defamatory meanings of Defendants’ false statements are apparent from the face of the publications, refer to Ms. Freeman by name, are accompanied by images of Ms. Freeman, and/or are understood to be about her.

138. The statements authored and published by Defendants about Ms. Freeman are reasonably understood to state or imply that she:

a) Planned and carried out with others a plot to “steal the election” and “flip Georgia” for Joe Biden;

b) Helped to fake a water main break that was used as a cover to bring suitcases stuffed with fraudulent ballots into the vote tabulation center;

c) Engaged in a criminal conspiracy to exclude observers during the counting of ballots so that election fraud could be committed;

d) Criminally introduced illegal ballots taken from the hidden suitcases into the ballot counting process when no observers were present;

e) Fraudulently triple-counted ballots by running them through a tabulator three times; and

f) Committed election fraud and other crimes for which she is subject to arrest and imprisonment.

139. Each of these statements and implications is false and defamatory.

140. Each of these statements was read by millions of visitors to The Gateway Pundit website, as well as social media users who read social media posts shared by Defendants.

141. Each of these false statements was published with actual malice, i.e., with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard as to its truth.

142. Defendants failed to contact and question obvious available sources for corroboration; disregarded reliable sources refuting their claims; had no credible basis for the false allegations made; and published their allegations in a manner to create false inferences.

143. Defendants had both political and financial motives for promulgating lies about Plaintiffs.

144. Defendants did not neutrally report the allegations about Ms. Freeman that were advanced by Trump lawyers and promptly disproven by Georgia election officials. Rather, they endorsed and adopted the allegations as their own, publishing and republishing them for months with full knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for their truth.

145. Defendants had no applicable privilege or legal authorization to make these false and defamatory statements, or if they did, they abused it.

146. Defendants repeated and embellished the false accusations without ever attempting to verify them and invented and published defamatory lies about Ms. Freeman without once seeking comment from her.

147. Defendants’ defamatory statements were inherently improbable to begin with and have only become more improbable over time.

148. Defendants have never retracted their defamatory statements and those statements remain published on The Gateway Pundit to this day. Even after Plaintiffs specifically requested that Defendants retract their defamatory statements, Defendants took no action, further evidencing their actual malice.

149. Defendants’ statements and implications about Ms. Freeman constitute defamation per se in that they damaged her in her trade, office, or profession and claimed that she participated in criminal activity punishable by law and labeled her a “crook.”

150. Defendants acted with willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, and/or entire want of care which would raise the presumption of conscious indifference to consequences, and they specifically intended to cause Ms. Freeman harm.

151. Defendants’ statements damaged Ms. Freeman’s reputation in the general public, in her profession, in her neighborhood, and with friends, relatives, and neighbors.

152. As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ conduct, Ms. Freeman has suffered significant general, actual, consequential, and special damages including, without limitation, impairment of reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation, mental anguish and suffering, emotional distress, stress, anxiety, lost earnings, and other pecuniary loss. Among other things, Ms. Freeman lost income when she was forced to shutter her online business.

SECOND CLAIM
(Defamation of Ms. Moss)


153. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all paragraphs preceding and following as if fully set forth herein.

154. Beginning on December 3, 2020, Defendants published a series of false and defamatory statements of fact about Ms. Moss, including by and through The Gateway Pundit’s own agents making the statements themselves; and by republishing the statements on The Gateway Pundit’s website and social media accounts, and the social media accounts of its agents, as detailed extensively above. Those statements include, but are not limited to, the following nonexhaustive list:

a) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 1:11 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

Poll watchers were kicked out of the State Farm Arena tabulation center on election night after a burst pipe caused flooding.



We now know that a pipe never burst. It was all a lie in order to kick out poll watchers while a few crooks stayed behind to count illegal ballots for Joe Biden.


b) In a December 3, 2020, article published at 1:11 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim seven (7) times on December 3, 2020 at 8:49 p.m.; December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m., 8:53 a.m., 1;51 p.m.; December 7, 2020 at 7:15 a.m.; and December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m. and 1:11 p.m.:

A few “workers” stayed behind and were seen pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables to be tabulated!


c) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 8:49 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim six (6) times on December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m., 8:53 a.m., and 1:51 p.m.; December 7, 2020 at 7:15 a.m.; and December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m. and 1:11 p.m.:

Cristina Laila reported on the explosive video that was revealed during the Georgia ballot counting at the State Farm Arena where crooked Democrats pulled out suitcases full of ballots and began counting those ballots without election monitors in the room.


d) In their December 3, 2020, article published at 8:49 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim on December 4, 2020 at 7:35 a.m.:

Local 11 News covered the story from the State Farm Arena that a pipe had burst. (This later was proven to be complete fraud and an excuse to kick out the GOP election observers!)


e) In their December 4, 2020, article published at 7:35 a.m., Defendants made the following false statement, which they republished verbatim on December 8, 2020 at 7:20 a.m.:

“Shaye” [was] the woman in blonde [pigtails/braids] [who was filmed] removing suitcases of ballots from under a table after GOP observers were evacuated from the room and told to go home.


f) In their December 4, 2020, article published at 1:51 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

And now there is video of Ruby secretly passing something to her daughter during the ballot counting.

It is not clear what was passed. Some readers say it was a USB stick but it is not clear what they passed to each other.

It sure looks like they were trying to hide this transaction.


g) In their December 4, 2020, article published at 5:45 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

The mother – daughter team of ballot counters in Atlanta really overdid their fraud. We saw last night how they stuck around and counted ballots after kicking Republicans out of the State Farm Center on a fake water main break hoax.

We also saw the mother and daughter pass an object the size of a thumb drive between each other in a suspicious manner[.]

Now we have evidence mother Ruby sent the same stack of votes through a tabulator in the State Farm Center three times. This is illegal.

The corrupt Republican politicians in Georgia are giving the election to Joe Biden. Besides them, nobody did more to steal the election for Joe Biden than this mother – daughter combo. The good people in Georgia need to stand up.


h) In their December 7, 2020, article published at 7:15 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

And [Ruby’s] daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss was later identified as her supervisor who was helping cart out the hidden ballots in the suitcases to be counted after all of the GOP observers and media was sent home for a “water main” break.

It was all a fraud.


i) In their December 7, 2020, article published at 8:29 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements, which they republished on December 8, 2020 at 8:59 a.m.:

Ralph Jones, Sr. was identified as the third suspect in the Fulton County Georgia suitcase scandal.

** Ralph led a team of operatives in carrying out a massive voter fraud scandal on election night at the State Farm Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

** Ralph and his team plotted to remove ALL elections observers (Republicans) from the counting room so they could roll out their suitcases full of Joe Biden ballots and run them through the machine.

...

They sent everyone home!

...

** The elections officials used the “water main break” to say there was a delay in counting and they used that to send people home — except for the suitcase gang.

** Then Ralph Jones, Sr., Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Ross went to work rolling out the hidden suitcases of ballots stashed under the table and hidden from view.

** It was their actions that gave Joe Biden the spike in unexplained votes in Georgia on Wednesday morning.

** It appears this was a conspiracy to lie to the public including local news, to remove observers from the center and then to commit their hidden suitcase ballot fraud.


j) Defendants end their December 7, 2020, article published at 8:29 a.m. with the following false statements:

We know [the alleged pipe burst at State Farm Arena] was a lie because there was NEVER a work order filed and the water department never received a call.

It never happened!

But it gave Ralph and Ruby and Shaye cover to complete their scam on Georgia and America!


k) In their December 8, 2020, article published at 7:20 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

Shaye told everyone to go home.

Then Shaye, her mother and a couple others including Ralph Jones, Sr. were filmed taking “suitcases” of ballots hidden under a table out to be tabulated. This was right before Joe Biden got his surprise spike in ballots.

And now the liberal media and their fake “fact-checkers” are lying about the incredible incident caught on video!


l) In their December 23, 2020, article published at 8:40 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

The Gateway Pundit was first to identify Ruby Freeman, her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and their boss Ralph Jones, Sr. in the infamous suitcase ballot hoist [sic].

We later reported on Ruby Freeman running the same batch of ballots through the counting machines at least three times after these Democrat operatives cleared the room of observers!

...

Shaye Moss is the same person who called out for observers to go home late on election night before the ballot hoist.

Ralph Jones, Sr. is ON AUDIO telling reporters he was going to shut down the State Farm Center early and send observers home. This was BEFORE the suitcase ballot hoist[sic]!

It was a carefully planned event!

They had NO IDEA they would get caught!

At this time there is no evidence that FBI or the Georgia Bureau of Investigations have interviewed or arrested Ruby Freeman, Shaye Ross, or Ralph Jones, Sr.

They were able to flip Georgia for Beijing Biden by their actions.

Why is the FBI or DOJ not involved?

This tells you everything you need to know about your federal government.


m) In their January 3, 2021, article published at 6:20 p.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

President Trump: We have at least 18,000, that’s on tape. We had them counted very painstakingly. 18,000 voters having to with BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman). She’s a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler. BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman) that is the tape that is shown all over the world. It makes everybody look bad, you, me and everybody else. Number one, they said very clearly, and it’s been reported that they said that there’s a water main break. Everybody fled the area. And then they came back. BEEP [in red] (Ruby Freeman) and her daughter and a few people.


n) In their June 19, 2021, article published at 8:31 p.m., Defendants made the following false statement:

The Democrat operatives were running a voter fraud factory inside the State Farm Center on Election Day and into Election Week!


o) In their August 14, 2021, article published at 9:15 a.m., Defendants made the following false statements:

We first discovered Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss in December when The Gateway Pundit first reported that these two election workers took ballots out from under a table on Election night and jammed thousands of ballots into the tabulators numerous times.

This was after all of the election observers were sent home for the night. This was also after Trump had accumulated what experts said was an insurmountable lead in the state.

We revealed first that the ballots taken out from under tables on Election night were pushed into tabulators up to three times each.



This is not good for Ruby and her daughter.

It’s also pathetic that these two are not in jail already. Their crimes were videotaped!


155. The defamatory meanings of Defendants’ false statements are apparent from the face of the publications, refer to Ms. Moss by name, are accompanied by images of Ms. Moss, and/or are understood to be about her.

156. The statements authored and published by Defendants about Ms. Moss are reasonably understood to state or imply that she:

a) Planned and carried out with others a plot to “steal the election” and “flip Georgia” for Joe Biden;

b) Helped to fake a water main break that was used as a cover to bring suitcases stuffed with fraudulent ballots into the vote tabulation center;

c) Engaged in a criminal conspiracy to exclude observers during the counting of ballots so that election fraud could be committed;

d) Criminally introduced illegal ballots taken from the hidden suitcases into the ballot counting process when no observers were present;

e) Committed election fraud and other crimes for which she is subject to arrest and imprisonment.

157. Each of these statements and implications is false and defamatory.

158. Each of these statements were read by millions of visitors to The Gateway Pundit website, as well as social media users who read social media posts shared by Defendants.

159. Each of these false statements was published with actual malice, i.e. with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard as to its truth.

160. Defendants failed to contact and question obvious available sources for corroboration; disregarded reliable sources refuting their claims; had no credible basis for the false allegations made; and published their allegations in a manner to create false inferences.

161. Defendants had both political and financial motives for promulgating lies about Plaintiffs.

162. Defendants did not neutrally report the allegations about Ms. Moss that were advanced by Trump lawyers and promptly disproven by Georgia election officials. Rather, they endorsed and adopted the allegations as their own, publishing and republishing them for months with full knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for their truth.

163. Defendants had no applicable privilege or legal authorization to make these false and defamatory statements, or if they did, they abused it.

164. Defendants repeated and embellished the false accusations without ever attempting to verify them, and they invented and published defamatory lies about Ms. Moss without once seeking comment from her.

165. Defendants’ defamatory statements were inherently improbable to begin with and have only become more improbable over time.

166. Defendants have never retracted their defamatory statements and those statements remain published on The Gateway Pundit to this day. Even after Plaintiffs specifically requested that Defendants retract their defamatory statements, Defendants took no action, further evidencing their actual malice.

167. Defendants’ statements and implications about Ms. Moss constitute defamation per se in that they claim Ms. Moss participated in criminal activity punishable by law and labeled her a “crook.”

168. Defendants acted with willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, and/or entire want of care which would raise the presumption of conscious indifference to consequences, and they specifically intended to cause Ms. Moss harm.

169. Defendants’ statements damaged Ms. Moss’s reputation in the general public, in her profession, in her neighborhood, and with friends, relatives, and neighbors.

170. As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ conduct, Ms. Moss has suffered significant general, actual, consequential, and special damages including, without limitation, impairment of reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation, mental anguish and suffering, emotional distress, stress, anxiety, lost earnings, and other pecuniary loss. Among other things, Ms. Moss has had to pay for summer school for her son when he turned off his phone and failed classes as a result of the harassment prompted by Defendants’ defamation.

THIRD CLAIM
(Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress)


171. Plaintiffs incorporate and re-allege all paragraphs preceding and following as if fully set forth herein.

172. Defendants’ months-long campaign of false and defamatory accusations directed specifically at Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss was malicious, wanton, and intentional.

173. Defendants carried out their campaign with actual malice as they either knew that their accusations were false or published them with reckless disregard for their truth.

174. Defendants wrongful conduct was extreme and outrageous, and it was calculated to cause harm to Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss. Defendants accused plaintiffs of stealing an election through a pre-conceived plan that would make them “infamous in the annals of voter corruption.” They exploited public fear and taunted the “good people of Georgia” to stand up to the corrupt “mother-daughter combo” who stole the election for Joe Biden. Defendants encouraged readers to retaliate and harass plaintiffs, publicizing that Ms. Freeman could be contacted through the LinkedIn page of her business and coyly warning not to confuse her business with another in Georgia with a similar name.

175. Defendants’ wrongful conduct is so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree that it is beyond all possible bounds of decency and is to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.

176. Defendants acted with willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, and/or entire want of care which would raise the presumption of conscious indifference to consequences, and they specifically intended to cause Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss harm.

177. Defendants’ wrongful conduct had its intended effect. All aspects of plaintiffs’ lives have been altered as a result of Defendants’ actions, including such simple things as where to live, how to go out in public, and when to see family and friends. This result was entirely foreseeable. Defendants’ conduct is so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to be beyond all bounds of decency. It should be regarded as atrocious and determined intolerable in a civilized community.

178. Defendants’ wrongful conduct has inflicted severe emotional distress on plaintiffs. They have suffered mental reactions including fright and fear for their safety, horror and helplessness in the face of the intense hatred directed at them by defendants and by their readers, anger, anxiety, sleeplessness, shame and humiliation. The emotional distress defendants caused to be inflicted on Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss was so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.

179. Defendants’ wrongful conduct caused physical manifestations of harm to plaintiffs including weight gain, disrupted sleep, and anxiety attacks, as well as mental anguish, requiring them to seek treatment for the mental anguish resulting directly from the severe emotional trauma inflicted by defendants.

180. As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ conduct, plaintiffs have suffered significant general, actual, incidental, and special damages including, without limitation, emotional distress, overwhelming stress and anxiety, lost earnings, and other pecuniary loss.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs pray for judgment against Defendants for each of the causes of action raised herein. Plaintiffs respectfully request a judgment in their favor and against Defendants for:

A. Nominal damages;

B. Compensatory damages, including general, actual, consequential, and special damages, in an amount to be determined at trial;

C. Punitive damages;

D. Reasonable and necessary attorneys’ fees;

E. Reasonable and necessary costs of the suit;

F. Prejudgment and post-judgment interest at the highest lawful rates;

G. Declarative relief stating that the statements authored and published by Defendants identified within this Petition, individually and collectively, were and are false:

H. Injunctive relief enjoining Defendants to remove their false and defamatory statements about plaintiffs from any website and/or social media accounts under their control

I. Such other and further relief as this Court deems just and appropriate.

Dated: December 2, 2021 Respectfully submitted,

By /s/ James E. Bennett
James F. Bennett, No. 46826
John C. Danforth, No. 18438
Matt D. Ampleman, No. 69938
Dowd Bennett LLP
7733 Forsyth Blvd, Suite 1900
St. Louis, MO 63105
[DELETE]

Von A. DuBose*
75 14th Street, NE
Suite 2110
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
[DELETE]

Kurt G. Kastorf*
Kastorf Law LLC
1387 Iverson Street NE
Suite #100
Atlanta, GA 30307
[DELETE]

Brittany Williams*
"UNITED T0 PROTECT DEMOCRACY, INC.
15 Main St., Suite 312
Watertown MA 02472
[DELETE]

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Re: Ruby Freeman Was Not Arrested by the FBI, by Dan Evon

Postby admin » Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:39 am

Part 3 of 3

1 Gateway Pundit, About, https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/about/ (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

2 NewsGuard, Media Analysis of the US Election: August 2020, Pressrelations – Knowledge Discovery, 36 (Sept. 4,  2020), https://www.pressrelations.com/files/us ... dix_EN.pdf.
 
3 Adrienne Goldstein, Social Media Engagement with Deceptive Sites Reached Record Highs in 2020 |  Strengthening Transatlantic Cooperation, German Marshall Fund of the United States (Jan. 27, 2021),  https://www.gmfus.org/news/social-media-engagement-deceptive-sites-reached-record-highs-2020/.
 
4 Robert Faris et al., Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential  Election at 13, Berkman Klein Ctr. for Internet & Soc’y, 13 (2017), http://nrs harvard.edu/urn-  3:HUL.InstRepos:33759251/.

5 Goldstein, supra note 3.

6 US Conservative Websites Ranked by Unique Visitors, September 2021, The Righting,  https://www.therighting.com/september-2021-conservative-website-metrics (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

7 Gateway Pundit, Facebook, https://www facebook.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

8 Gateway Pundit, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/c/GatewayPunditVideo/ (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).
 
9 One of the Biggest Publishers of Election Misinfo Earned Up to $1.1 Million in Google Ad Revenue, Ctr. for  Countering Digital Hate (July 29, 2021), https://www.counterhate.com/post/gatewaypundit.

10 Paul Wagman, Loud, shrill and unknown: The strange case of the Gateway Pundit, Gateway Journalism Review  (July 6, 2021), https://gatewayjr.org/loud-shrill-and-u ... y-pundit/; Subscribe to  The Gateway Pundit!, The Gateway Pundit, https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/join/ (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

11 Faris et al, supra note 4, at 15 (quoting Ben Schreckinger, ‘Real News’ Joins the White House Briefing Room,  Politico Mag. (Feb. 15, 2017), https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... hitehouse- trump-briefing-room-214781/).

12 Andrew Marantz, Is Trump Trolling the White House Press Corps?, New Yorker (Mar. 13, 2017),  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/20/is-trump-trolling-the-white-house-press-corps.
 
13 Greg Bluestein, Election Day Arrives: 5 Factors That Will Decide Georgia’s 2020 Race, Atlanta J.-Const., (Nov.  3, 2020), https://www.ajc.com/politics/election-d ... gias-2020-  race/5K5HAAJJGBHDRLB6KWTHQ7ODRE/; see also id. (noting how “tantalizingly close” Democrats came to  winning a statewide official in 2018).

14 November 3, 2020 General Election, Ga. Sec’y of State,  https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/105369/web.264614/#/detail/5000 (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

15 Id.

16 Kate Brumback & Sudhin Thanawala, Despite A Few Hiccups, Voting in Georgia Goes Smoothly, Associated  Press (Nov. 4, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/election-202 ... bc464481cf.

17 Decl. of Frances Watson ¶¶ 4, 6, Pearson v. Kemp, Civ. No. 1:20-cv-04809-TCB (N.D. Ga. Dec. 6, 2020), ECF  No. 72-1, https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... idavit.pdf

18 Statement Regarding Absentee Ballot Tabulation at State Farm Arena, State Farm Arena (Nov. 3, 2020),  https://www.statefarmarena.com/news/detail/statement-regarding-absentee-ballot-tabulation-at-state-farm-arena.

19 Ben Brasch, Fulton County Election Results Delayed After Pipe Bursts in Room with Ballots, Atlanta J.-Const.  (Nov. 3, 2020), https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/f ... -roomwith- ballots/4T3KPQV7PBEX3JVAIGJBNBSVJY/.

20 Declaration of Frances Watson ¶ 5, Pearson v. Kemp, Civ. No. 1:20-cv-04809-TCB (N.D. Ga. Dec. 6, 2020), ECF  No. 72-1 (stating that the Secretary of State’s Office launched an investigation that “revealed that the incident  initially reported as a water leak late in the evening on November 3rd was actually a urinal that had overflowed early  in the morning of November 3rd” and confirming that this leak “did not affect the counting of votes by Fulton  County later that evening”), https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... idavit.pdf.

21 Adam Edelman, With final states called, Biden’s projected Electoral College victory matches Trump’s in 2016,  NBC News (Nov. 13, 2020), https://www nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/final-states-called-biden-s-projectedelectoral- college-victory-matches-n1247766. Gregory Krieg, Joe Biden becomes first Democrat in 28 years to win  Georgia, CNN (Nov. 13, 2021), https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/politics ... rgia/index html.

22 “Like any risk-limiting audit, this audit does not confirm or correct the exact margin of victory. It only provides  sufficient evidence that the correct winner was reported.” Risk-Limiting Audit Report: Georgia Presidential Contest,  November 2020, Georgia Secretary of State (Nov. 19, 2020),  https://sos.ga.gov/admin/uploads/11.19_.20_Risk_Limiting_Audit_Report_Memo_1.pdf.
 
23 Id.

24 Id.

25 Kate Brumback, Georgia Officials Certify Election Results Showing Biden Win, Associated Press (Nov. 20, 2020),  https://apnews.com/article/georgia-certify-election-joe-biden-ea8f867d740f3d7d42d0a55c1aef9e69.

26 Kate Brumback, Georgia Again Certifies Election Results Showing Biden Won, Associated Press (Dec. 7, 2021),  https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-elections- 4eeea3b24f10de886bcdeab6c26b680a.

27 Id.

28 Beau Evans, Georgia Senate Panel Hosts Trump Attorney Giuliani As Election Officials Dispute Fraud Claims,  Augusta Chron. (Dec. 3, 2020),https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/news/2020/12/03/georgia-senate-panelprobing-  election-hosts-trump-attorney-giuliani/3818365001/.

29 Angelo Fichera, Video Doesn’t Show ‘Suitcases’ of Illegal Ballots in Georgia, FactCheck.org (Dec. 4, 2020),  https://www.factcheck.org/2020/12/video-doesnt-show-suitcases-of-illegal-ballots-in-georgia/. For video of the hearing, see also 11Alive, Second Georgia Senate Election Hearing, YouTube (Dec. 3, 2020),  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRCXUNOwOjw.

30 11Alive, Second Georgia Senate Election Hearing, YouTube (Dec. 3, 2020),  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRCXUNOwOjw (showing Ms. Pick’s commentary on the surveillance footage  from 33:27 to 50:26).

31 Id.
 
32 Id.

33 Id.

34 Response of the Georgia Secretary of State to the Court’s Order of September 20, 2021, Favorito v. Wan, Civ. No.  2020CV343938 (Fulton Cnty. Ga. Super. Ct. Oct. 12, 2021), https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/10/12/ele ... stigators-  havent-found-evidence-of-counterfeit-ballots-in-georgia/.

35 State Farm Arena, Secure the Vote, https://securevotega.com/fact-check/ (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).
 
36 Voting Implementation Manager for the State of Georgia, Gabriel Sterling reported that Georgia’s Secretary of  State Brad Raffensperger ordered election workers to continue counting ballots through the night. Maggie Astor, A  Georgia Election Official Debunked Trump’s Claims of Voter Fraud, Point by Point, N.Y. Times (Jan. 4, 2021),  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/us/politics/trump-georgia-election-fraud html.

37 One America News Network, Giuliani, TRUMP Legal Team Testify in GA.FULL 12/3/20, YouTube (Dec. 4,  2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wObE1JCQMg/.

38 Donald J. Trump, Video from GA Shows Suitcases Filled with Ballots Pulled From Under a Table AFTER Poll  Workers Left, YouTube (Dec. 3, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVP_60Hm4P8/.

39 @TeamTrump, Twitter (Dec. 3, 2020, 10:32 AM), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201205122001/https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1334566301205925889/ (last  visited Nov. 30, 2021); @TeamTrump, Twitter (Dec. 3, 2020, 10:44 AM), available at https://web.archive.org/web/20201205122 ... 334083586/ (last  visited Nov. 30, 2021). The @TeamTrump account is no longer accessible on Twitter.

41 Cristina Laila, HUGE! Video Footage From Georgia Shows Suitcases Filled with Ballots Pulled From Under  Table AFTER Supervisor Told GOP Poll Workers to Leave Tabulation Center, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 3, 2020, 1:11  PM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... lledtable-  supervisor-told-gop-poll-workers-leave-tabulation-center/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as  Exhibit 1.

42 Id.
 
43 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 3, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1334577520478392320 (last  visited Nov. 30, 2021). The @gatewaypundit account is no longer accessible on Twitter.

44 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 3, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).
 
45 Jim Hoft, WHERE’S BILL BARR? — We Got Your Voter Fraud AG Barr — It’s On Video and They Attempted to  Steal Georgia with It! — HOW ABOUT A FEW ARRESTS?, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 3, 2020, 2:29 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/bill-barr-got-voter-fraud-ag-barr-video-attempted-steal-georgiaarrests/.  A true and correct copy of this article is attached as Exhibit 2.

46 Jim Hoft, What’s Up, Ruby?… BREAKING: Crooked Operative Filmed Pulling Out Suitcases of Ballots in  Georgia IS IDENTIFIED, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 3, 2020, 8:49 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/ruby-breaking-crooked-democrat-filmed-pulling-suitcases-ballotsgeorgia-  identified/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as Exhibit 3.
 
47 Id.

48 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 3, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021); Joe Hoft (@joehoft), Twitter (Dec. 4, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/joehoft (last visited Nov. 30, 2021). Note that for  many of Jim and Joe Hoft’s tweets, web.archive.org does not appear to have captured the preview image.

49 Gabriel Sterling (@GabrielSterling), Twitter (Dec. 4, 2020, 6:41 AM),  https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1334825233610633217.

50 Alan Duke & Hallie Golden, Fact Check: Video From Georgia Does NOT Show Suitcases Filled With Ballots  Suspiciously Pulled From Under A Table; Poll Watchers Were NOT Told To Leave, Lead Stories (Dec. 3, 2020),  https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/12/fact-check-video-from-ga-does-not-show-suitcases-filled-with-ballotspulled-  from-under-a-table-after-poll-workers-dismissed.html.

51 Id.; see Angelo Fichera, Video Doesn’t Show ‘Suitcases’ of Illegal Ballots in Georgia, FactCheck.org (Dec. 4,  2020), https://www factcheck.org/2020/12/video-doesnt-show-suitcases-of-illegal-ballots-in-georgia/.
 
52 Stephen Fowler, ‘Someone’s Going To Get Killed’: Ga. Official Blasts GOP Silence On Election Threats, NPR  (Dec. 1, 2020, 8:58 PM ET), https://www npr.org/sections/biden-transitionupdates/  2020/12/01/940961602/someones-going-to-get-killed-ga-official-blasts-gop-silence-on-election-threats. 
 
53 Jim Hoft, BREAKING: CROOKED GEORGIA ELECTIONS SUPERVISER Filmed Pulling Out Suitcases of  Ballots from Beneath Table IS IDENTIFIED — IT’S RUBY’S DAUGHTER! (Video), Gateway Pundit (Dec. 4, 2020,  7:35 AM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... suitcases-  ballots-georgia-identified-rubys-daughter-video/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as  Exhibit 4. 
 
54 Stephen Fowler, Fact Checking Rudy Giulani’s Grandiose Georgia Election Fraud Claim, Georgia Public  Broadcasting (Dec. 4, 2020, 8:27 AM), https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/12/04/fac ... grandiose-  georgia-election-fraud-claim, archived at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201204170112/https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/12/04/fact-checking-rudy-giulianisgrandiose-  georgia-election-fraud-claim.
 
55 Joe Hoft, CLOWN SHOW: Georgia Election Insider Gabriel Sterling Freaks Out and Labels Election Fraud  Caught on Camera ‘Normal Ballot Processing’, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 4, 2020, 8:15 AM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/clown-show-georgia-election-insider-gabriel-sterling-freaks-labelselection-  fraud-caught-camera-normal-ballot-processing/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as  Exhibit 5.
 
56 Jim Hoft, NEW VIDEO Shows Anti-Trump Georgia Ballot Counter Ruby Freeman with Piles of Ballots, Walking  Past Boxes of Ballots, Working Alone in Cubes WITH NO GOP OBSERVERS IN SIGHT!, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 4,  2020, 8:53 AM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... unterruby-  freeman-piles-ballots-walking-past-boxes-ballots-no-gop-observers-sight. A true and correct copy of this  article is attached as Exhibit 6.

57 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 4, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021); Joe  Hoft (@joehoft), Twitter (Dec. 4, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201208010821/https://twitter.com/joehoft (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

58 Jim Hoft, UPDATE: More on the Suitcase Vote Scam, the Elections Supervisor and that Strange “Pass” Between  Mother and Daughter That Was Also Caught on Video, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 4, 2020, 1:51 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/update-ruby-freeman-elections-supervisor-shaye-ross-strange-passalso-  caught-video/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as Exhibit 7.
 
59 Id.

60 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 4, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

61 Monkey Savant, Gabriel Sterling and Chad Robichaux On Newsmax Discuss The GA Ballot Fraud Situation  12/04/20, YouTube (Dec. 4, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6k2zRRPx4I.

62 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 4, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1334881814670938113 (last  visited Nov. 30, 2021). Plaintiffs believe the timestamp available through web.archive.org is in Pacific Time.
 
63 Joe Hoft, UNBELIEVABLE: Anti-Trump Democrat In Georgia ‘Suitcase Scandal’ Caught Running Same Batch of  Ballots Through Tabulator THREE TIMES! (VIDEO), Gateway Pundit (Dec. 4, 2020, 5:45 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/unbelievable-mother-along-daughter-handled-counted-ballots-alonehours-  georgia-ruby-freeman-caught-running-batch-ballots-tabulator-three-times/. A true and correct copy of this  article is attached as Exhibit 8.

64 Joe Hoft, Fulton County 2020 Election Case’s Request is Granted - Election Workers Ruby Freeman, Wandrea  Moss, and Happy Faces Personnel Group Are Added to the Case, Gateway Pundit (Aug. 14, 2021, 9:15 AM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/fulton-county-2020-election-cases-request-add-ruby-freeman-wandreamoss-  happy-faces-personnel-group-case-granted/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as Exhibit 9.
 
65 Bill McCarthy, No, Georgia Election Workers Didn’t Kick Out Observers and Illegally Count ‘Suitcases’ of  Ballots, PolitiFact (Dec. 4, 2020), https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... aelection-  workers-didnt-kick-out-observe/.

66 Joe Hoft, EXCLUSIVE: Review of Late-Night Ballot Counting in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena Shows Mysterious  ‘Man In Red’ Receiving Numerous Calls During the Ballot Heist But from Whom?, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 6, 2020,  6:35 PM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... renashows-  mysterious-man-red-making-numerous-calls/; Jim Hoft, BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Third Suspect from State  Farm Center ‘Suitcase Scandal’ Identified as Ralph Jones, Sr. – Who Was in the News for Shady Deal with ATL  Mayor Keisha Bottoms, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 6, 2020, 9:23 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/breaking-exclusive-third-suspect-state-farm-center-suitcase-scandalidentified-  ralph-jones-sr-news-shady-deal-atl-mayor-keisha-bottoms/ (republishing same paragraph). True and  correct copies of these articles are attached as Exhibits 10 & 11.

67 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 6, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).
  
68 Declaration of Frances Watson, Pearson v. Kemp, Civ. No. 1:20-cv-04809-TCB (N.D. Ga. Dec. 6, 2020), ECF  No. 72-1, available at https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... idavit.pdf.

69 See, e.g., Daniel Chaitin, Chief Georgia Investigator: No ‘Mystery Ballots’ Seen in Security Video, Wash.  Examiner (Dec. 6, 2020, 11:56 PM), https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... nomystery-  ballots-seen-in-security-video; Ronn Blitzer, No ‘Mystery Ballots’ Hidden Under Table in Fulton  County, Georgia Investigator Swears in Affidavit, Fox News (Dec. 7, 2020),  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fulton-county-georgia-no-mystery-ballots-under-table-investigator-affidavit;  Peter Weber, Georgia’s Top Election Investigator Debunks A Vote Fraud Conspiracy Involving ‘Suitcases’ of  Ballots, A Urinal, Yahoo News (Dec. 7, 2020), https://news.yahoo.com/georgias-top-ele ... r-debunks-  115236191.html.
 
70 Jim Hoft, “I Won’t Be Able to Be Interviewed – I Need an Attorney” — Georgia’s Ruby Freeman Lawyers Up,  Cancels Interview, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 7, 2020, 7:15 AM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/wontable-  interviewed-need-attorney-georgias-ruby-freeman-lawyers-cancels-interview/. A true and correct copy of this  article is attached as Exhibit 12.

71 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 6, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201207070649/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

72 Jim Hoft, HUGE! WE CAUGHT THEM! Conspiracy Revealed — 3rd Suspect in GA ‘Suitcase Scandal’ is Also  the Same Man Who Spoke to Reporters on Water Main Break, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 7, 2020, 8:29 AM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... sescandal-  also-man-spread-lies-water-main-broke-state-farm-center/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached  as Exhibit 13.

73 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 7, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201208081456/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).
 
74 Nick Corasaniti, Top Georgia Election Official Debunks ‘Ridiculous’ Claims About Election Fraud, The New  York Times (Dec. 7, 2020), https://www nytimes.com/2020/12/07/technology/suitcases-ballots-georgiaelection  html.

 75 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 7, 2020, 6:38 PM),  https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1336137974875033602, available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201208024013/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1336137974875033602  (including link to Mollie Hemingway, No, The Georgia Vote-Counting Video Was Not ‘Debunked.’ Not Even Close,  Federalist (Dec. 7, 2020), https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/07/no ... tdebunked-  not-even-close/).
 
76 Jim Hoft, CONFIRMED: Supervisor Shaye Moss – Who “Yelled Out” for Georgia GOP Observers to Go Home –  Is Same Woman Who Pulled the Suitcase Ballots Out from Underneath the Table When they Left, Gateway Pundit  (Dec. 8, 2020, 7:20 AM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... edgeorgia-  gop-observers-go-home-woman-pulled-suitcase-ballots-underneath-table-left/. A true and correct copy of  this article is attached as Exhibit 14.
 
77 Jim Hoft, NOW WITH AUDIO: Georgia Election Official Ralph Jones, Sr. Announced on Nov. 3rd Evening that  Counting would Stop at 11 PM — Then Led Team to Count Stashed ‘Suitcase” Ballots, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 8,  2020, 8:59 AM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... announced-  nov-3rd-evening-counting-stop-11-pm-led-team-count-stashed-suitcase-ballots/. A true and correct copy  of this article is attached as Exhibit 15.
 
78 Jim Hoft, China-Funded ‘Fact-Checker’ Lead Stories Pushes Bullsh*t That Fulton County ‘Suitcase’ Scandal  Was Debunked — Will They EVER Tell the Truth?, Gateway Pundit (Dec. 8, 2020, 1:11 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/china-funded-facebook-fact-checker-lead-stories-pushes-bullsht-fultoncounty-  suitcase-scandal-debunked-will-ever-tell-truth/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as  Exhibit 16.

79 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 8, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201208224901/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).
 
80 Jim Hoft, Has the FBI Spoken with Ruby Freeman or Ralph Jones Yet? And If Not, Why in the Hell Do we Have  an FBI?, The Gateway Pundit (Dec. 23, 2020, 8:40 a m.), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... pokenruby-  freeman-ralph-jones-yet-not-fbi/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as Exhibit 17.

81 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Dec. 23, 2020), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20201226003813/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit(last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

82 WSJ Staff, Trump’s Georgia Call: Listen to the Audio and Read a Full Transcript, Wall St. J. (Jan. 3, 2021, 9:47  PM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/listen-to- ... 1609713527.
 
83 Jim Hoft, HUGE: TRUMP DROPS A BOMB DURING PHONE CALL! Tells Raffensperger ‘Vote Scammer and  Hustler’ Ruby Freeman Was Behind Alleged 18,000 FRAUDULENT VOTES in Suitcase Scandal! (VIDEO),  Gateway Pundit (Jan. 3, 2021, 6:20 PM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/0 ... bombphone-  call-tells-raffensperger-vote-scammer-hustler-ruby-freeman-behind-18000-fraudulent-votes-suitcase-scandalvideo/.  A true and correct copy of this article is attached as Exhibit 18.

84 Id.

85 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Jan. 2, 2021), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20210105040422/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit (last visited Nov. 30, 2021).

86 11Alive, Georgia Senate Runoffs | Secretary of State’s Office Addresses Election Day, Claims, YouTube (Jan. 4,  2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7lDlqJ66fU&t=740s.

87 Fact Check, Secure the Vote, https://securevotega.com/fact-check/ (last accessed Nov. 7, 2021).
 
88 Maggie Astor, A Georgia Election Official Debunked Trump’s Claims of Voter Fraud, Point by Point, N.Y. Times  (Jan. 4, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/us/p ... fraud.html.

89 Id.

90 Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit), Twitter (Jan. 4, 2021), available at  https://web.archive.org/web/20210105040422/https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1346240056055517185 (last  visited Nov. 30, 2021).
 
91 Bill McCarthy, Trump Rehashes Debunked Claim About ‘Suitcases’ of Ballots in Georgia Phone Call, PolitiFact  (Jan. 4, 2021), https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... laimabout-  suitcases-ball/.
 
92 Jim Hoft, IT WAS A VOTER FRAUD FACTORY: 2nd Carter Jones Report Describes Complete Breakdown of GA  Election Systems — BALLOTS EVERYWHERE, NO CHAIN OF CUSTODY, COMPLETE DISARRAY and WE  HAVE THE VIDEO, Gateway Pundit (June 19, 2021, 8:31 PM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/voterfraud-  factory-2nd-carter-jones-report-describes-complete-breakdown-election-systems-ballots-everywhere-nochain-  custody-complete-disarray-video/. A true and correct copy of this article is attached as Exhibit 19.

93 This lawsuit has since been dismissed. See Associated Press, Judge Dismisses Fulton County Ballot Review Case  in Georgia, U.S. News (Oct. 13, 2021), https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states ... s/2021-10-  13/judge-dismisses-fulton-county-ballot-review-case-in-georgia.
 
94 Ex. 9.

95 See, e.g., Jim Hoft, BREAKING: US Mail Found in Ditch in Rural Wisconsin – Included Absentee Ballots, Gateway Pundit (Sept. 23, 2020, 11:18 AM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/0 ... oundditch- greenville-wisconsin-included-absentee-ballots/.

96 E.g., Cristina Laila, As Many as 6,000 Illegal Votes Identified in Nevada – Thousands of People Referred to DOJ  For Potential Criminal Violation of Election Laws, Gateway Pundit (Nov. 5, 2020, 7:45 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/many-6000-illegal-votes-identified-nevada-thousands-people-referreddoj-  potential-criminal-violation-election-laws/; Jim Hoft, HUGE! Corrupted Software Used in Michigan County  that Stole 6,000 Votes from Trump – Is Also Used in ALL SWING STATES – PA, GA, NV, MI, WI, AZ, MN!,  Gateway Pundit (Nov. 6, 2020, 8:35 PM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... twareused-  michigan-county-stole-6000-votes-trump-also-used-swing-states-pa-ga-nv-mi-wi-az-mn/; Joe Hoft,  BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Analysis of Election Night Data from All States Shows MILLIONS OF VOTES Either  Switched from President Trump to Biden or Were Lost, Gateway Pundit (Nov. 10, 2020, 6:32 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/breaking-exclusive-analysis-election-night-data-states-shows-millionsvotes-  either-switched-president-trump-biden-lost/); Joe Hoft, SHOCKING EXCLUSIVE: WE CAUGHT THEM!  Pennsylvania Results Show a Statistically Impossible Pattern Behind Biden’s Steal! WE CAUGHT THEM!, Gateway  Pundit (Nov. 13, 2020, 6:47 PM), https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/1 ... nsylvania-  results-show-statistically-impossible-pattern-behind-bidens-steal-caught/; Jim Hoft, WE CAUGHT  THEM! Part 2: Email Inventor Dr. Shiva Finds SAME IMPOSSIBLE BALLOT RATIO Feature in Michigan Results  – WE CAUGHT THEM!, Gateway Pundit (Nov. 14, 2020, 5:49 PM),  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/caught-part-2-email-inventor-dr-shiva-finds-impossible-ballot-ratiofeature-  michigan-results-caught/.
 
97 Ex. 8.

98 Ex. 3.

99 Ex. 17.

100 Ex. 7.
 
101 The December 8, 2020 1:11 p m. article added the additional defamatory statement: “A few liberal election  ‘workers’ stayed behind and were seen pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables to be tabulated after the  GOP inspectors and media left the room!”
 
102 The December 4, 2020, 8:53 a m. article’s republication deletes the following sentences: “The woman in the  purple made a mistake and left her purse on her desk advertising her business,” and “It’s on her LinkedIn page!”

103 The December 4, 2020, 1:51 p.m. article’s republication deletes the following sentences: “Her T-shirt says ‘Lady  Ruby’ and her purse says, ‘LaRuby’ which is her company. This was not a very smart move. Her company is called  ‘LaRuby’s Unique Treasures.’ It’s on her LinkedIn page!”

104 The original publication of this article added that “Ruby Freeman still has an active Facebook  page (as of 11 PM on Thursday night),” while republications noted that Freeman’s Facebook  account was no longer active.
 
105 The December 8, 2020 at 8:59 a m. article shortens the final sentence to read, “It appears this was a conspiracy to  remove observers from the center and then to commit their hidden suitcase ballot fraud.”
 
 
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