Special Report: Trump aide arrange assembly the place election employee was pressured

A member of Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential marketing campaign organized and took part in a gathering at which a Georgia election employee says she was pressed by a Chicago publicist to falsely admit voting fraud.
The revelation straight ties a senior determine within the former president’s political operation to a rare late-night Jan. 4 assembly during which a $16-an-hour election employee confronted strain to implicate herself in a baseless conspiracy principle, stoked by Trump himself, as he sought to overturn his Georgia election loss.
Harrison Floyd – who was govt director of a nationwide marketing campaign coalition referred to as Black Voices for Trump in 2020 – advised Reuters on Monday that he requested Chicago publicist Trevian Kutti to go to the Atlanta space to talk with 62-year-old momentary election employee Ruby Freeman. Floyd mentioned he then participated by cellphone in a gathering Kutti held with Freeman at a police station in Georgia’s Cobb County.
Kutti was accompanied on the assembly by one other Trump marketing campaign determine: Garrison Douglas, who was a Georgia chief in Black Voices for Trump throughout the marketing campaign and now works as a Republican Party spokesperson within the state.
Douglas confirmed to Reuters that he was current on the assembly. Floyd mentioned he recruited Douglas and Kutti as a result of he was unable to attend himself. In an announcement to Reuters on Monday, Douglas mentioned: “On January 4th, I was unemployed and received a call to serve as avolunteer driver, as I had many times in the past. I had no involvement in the meeting beyond the task of driving.”
In a cellphone interview Monday, Floyd mentioned he was requested if he’d be keen to arrange the assembly by a person he described as a chaplain with “connections” in federal regulation enforcement. He declined to call the clergyman or to element what these connections concerned.
Floyd mentioned the chaplain, who’s white, wished him to strategy Freeman, who’s Black, to debate an immunity deal for her, out of a perception that she wouldn’t belief a white stranger. Floyd, Douglas and Kutti are Black.
Floyd mentioned that he had left his function within the Trump marketing campaign earlier than the Jan. 4 assembly. Trump himself “never asked me to go” to Georgia, he mentioned, and board members of the Black Voices for Trump group “had no involvement in this.”
Floyd mentioned he organized the assembly in an effort to assist Freeman. He mentioned he himself believed she was in search of help, together with immunity from prosecution over claims from the Trump camp that she had dedicated voting fraud.
Freeman, via a spokesperson, mentioned she by no means reached out to anybody to hunt immunity. Her lawyer, Von DuBose, declined to remark additional. A former Justice Department official in Georgia confirmed that state and federal investigators concluded in December 2020 that there was no proof Freeman dedicated fraud.
As a outcome, the division by no means thought of providing her immunity, mentioned the official, who had direct data of a Federal Bureau ofInvestigation inquiry into Trump’s Georgia election-fraud claims.
Floyd didn’t straight reply when requested whether or not Freeman requested immunity on the assembly. He mentioned Freeman wasn’t keen to “put anything down on paper,” so he had nothing to “run up the flagpole,” referring to his extra senior contacts in Trump’s political operation.
Asked if he advised Freeman that he was a Trump marketing campaign official, Floyd mentioned: “I’m pretty certain that I made it clear.” He referred to a remark by Kutti, captured on police bodycam video, telling Freeman that “federal people” had been concerned in providing her assist.
“Who was the current president at that time? President Trump,” mentioned Floyd. “If she’s there saying, I’m here to connect you with federal people, well, that’s people in the Trump administration.”
Freeman advised Reuters in a earlier interview that she didn’t know Kutti was a Trump supporter till after the assembly atthe police station, when Freeman researched the publicist on-line.
Kutti and her lawyer, Robert Barker, didn’t reply to requests for remark. In an Instagram submit final Monday, Kutti denied pressuring Freeman to falsely admit fraud.
A spokesperson for Trump didn’t reply to requests for remark for this story. The Republican National Committee, the place Douglas is now employed, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The involvement of Trump marketing campaign figures within the assembly with Freeman highlights the aggressive and weird steps taken by backers of the previous president to assist reverse his loss within the once-reliably Republican state.
Beginning on Dec. 3 final yr, Trump and his allies falsely claimed that video of vote-counting at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena proved that Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, one other Fulton County election employee, dedicated election fraud.
They alleged the mom and daughter illegally tabulated mysterious ballots from a suitcase a number of instances to create 18,000 fraudulent votes – sufficient to trigger Trump to lose the Georgia election.
State and county officers rapidly disproved that allegation. The false claims sparked months of loss of life threats and different harassment by Trump supporters towards Freeman and her daughter.
The district lawyer in Fulton County, the place Freeman labored on the poll depend, is conducting a felony investigation into Trump’s alleged interference in Georgia’s election. The district lawyer, Fani Willis, has mentioned the probe would look at a now-famous name during which Trump pressed Georgia officers to “find” him sufficient votes to overturn his loss within the state.
On the decision, Trump singled out Freeman by title 18 instances, calling her a “professional vote scammer,” a “hustler” and a “known political operative” who “stuffed the ballot boxes.”
That name got here two days earlier than Floyd dispatched Kutti and Douglas to go to Freeman.
BLACK VOICES FOR TRUMP
Floyd and Douglas had been a part of a small however lively base of Black political help for Trump. Kutti has labored as a publicist within the music business and managed the marketing campaign for an unsuccessful Georgia Republican candidate for the U.S. House.
Floyd launched a bid for Georgia’s seventh District congressional seat in May 2019 however dropped out lower than a month later. That July, he joined Black Voices for Trump as govt director, a place he says he held till Nov. 15, 2020.
Trump marketing campaign data present that Black Voices for Trump was an official a part of the marketing campaign, very like different teams that concentrate on particular voters, equivalent to Latinos for Trump and Evangelicals for Trump.
The group’s archived web site mentioned the location was “Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.” Floyd advised Reuters that he had an workplace in the identical constructing because the core marketing campaign in Virginia, the place he mentioned he labored on the identical flooring as probably the most senior staffers of Trump’s political operation.
Trump referred to as out Floyd for applause whereas talking earlier than a crowd at a rally for the group on the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta in November 2019. “We’re delighted to be joined by Harrison Floyd of our Black Voices coalition,” the president mentioned.
“Where’s Harrison? Where’s Harrison?”Since April of this yr, Floyd has labored as a managing accomplice at Commonwealth Holdings International, a Washington-based funding agency that makes a speciality of serving to purchasers spend money on cryptocurrencies, in line with the agency’s webpage and Floyd’s LinkedIn web page.
Floyd served within the U.S. Marine Corps for practically 11 years ending in 2014, together with stints as a machine gunner, a martialarts coach, and an info operations planner, his LinkedIn web page reveals.
As a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee (RNC), the social gathering’s nationwide organizing physique, Douglas repeatedly posts weblog gadgets on the RNC web site. He has used that platform to applaud a Republican-backed election regulation in Georgia that the Justice Department says is “discriminatory” towards Black voters.
Douglas countered in an RNC weblog submit that the regulation, handed this yr, “makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat.” During the 2020 marketing campaign, Douglas was lively in Georgia for Black Voices for Trump, in line with a Reuters assessment of his social media posts between August and November of final yr.
At an occasion on Aug. 1, 2020, promoted by the Fayette County Republican Party, Douglas launched himself because the “regional engagement coordinator for Trump victory” and mentioned he was serving to to steer Black Voices for Trump in Georgia. Kutti, a Chicago publicist, has mentioned her purchasers have included rap star Kanye West; a West spokesperson says Kutti wasn’t related to the rapper on the time of the Freeman assembly.
Kutti was a supporter of Black Voices for Trump, her social media historical past reveals. On Dec. 5, 2020, greater than a month after Election Day, she posted a photograph on Instagram displaying her holding a “Black Voices for Trump” signal at a Trump rally in Valdosta, Georgia.
At that rally, Trump performed snippets of the State Farm Arena surveillance video of Freeman and her daughter on an enormous display screen. The footage, he mentioned, revealed a “crime” dedicated by “Democrat workers.”
TIME RUNNING OUT BEFORE JAN. 6
The mission for which Floyd recruited Kutti and Douglas got here on Jan. 4 – on the top of Trump’s efforts to overturn the November election, and two days earlier than the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, the day that Congress met to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
In an interview with Reuters, Floyd described a fevered ambiance of allegations involving Freeman in December. At the time, Trump and his legal professionals had been persevering with to press false claims that the election had been stolen. Floyd mentioned he acquired calls from “across the country” from individuals saying they might organize immunity for Freeman if she had been to admit to election fraud.
“Some of those phone calls that I mentioned were from lawyers and attorneys who were saying, ‘Is this true? Does she really want immunity?’” He declined to establish these attorneys.
Asked how he knew Freeman wished immunity, Floyd cited “a lot of chatter and discussion on the internet … People were saying, ‘We’re hearing that this is what she wanted,’” he mentioned.
“But no one could confirm anything.”When Floyd spoke with Freeman by speakerphone on the precinct late on Jan. 4, he advised Reuters, he believed time was working out to rearrange a deal as a result of the election would quickly be licensed on Jan. 6.
“If Ms. Freeman wanted to get a message to the president and wanted immunity,” Floyd mentioned, “that’s really important to get to the right people before an election is certified.”
Floyd mentioned he reached out to Kutti and Douglas to strategy Freeman. “I had spoken to some people that I knew and made arrangements for and secured a place where Ms. Freeman could go,” he mentioned, “a place where no one would know that she was there, and no one would harass her there.”
‘WERE THOSE HONEST BALLOTS?’
Kutti confirmed up uninvited at Freeman’s door at about 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 4, police data present. As Reuters reported earlier this month, Freeman advised police that in that night time’s encounter, Kutti tried to get her to falsely implicate herself in voting fraud. A Cobb County Police report recognized Kutti as an “alleged Trump supporter who attempted to get Ms. Freeman to make false claims about theballot counting.”
Freeman, who’d been subjected to threats, was cautious of strangers however wished to listen to out Kutti, so she requested the police to ship an officer to look at over them.
According to the police report, Kutti advised the responding officer that she had been despatched by a “high-profile individual” and that Freeman was in unspecified hazard, “due to the election.”
Kutti advised the officer that Freeman had simply 48 hours to “get ahead of the issue” earlier than unknown individuals had been going to indicate up at her dwelling. The officer advised that the 2 ladies meet on the police station, which they did.
At the precinct, Douglas sat with Kutti and Freeman as the 2 ladies talked within the nook of a room, police bodycam footage reveals. After a couple of minutes, Kutti put Floyd on the speakerphone.
Freeman initially advised Reuters she thought Floyd’s title was “Harrison Ford.” The information group later decided that Kutti had launched the person on the speakerphone as Harrison “Floyd.”
That conclusion was backed by an evaluation by an out of doors forensic knowledgeable, Focal Forensics, of that portion of their dialog, which was captured on a police officer’s physique digital camera.
After Reuters introduced this discovering to Floyd, he confirmed it was him. As the assembly started, the footage reveals, Kutti advised Freeman:“You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up.”
Floyd got here on by way of speakerphone, and the assembly continued for one more hour. Large parts of the bodycam audio should not clearly audible, as a result of the officer stepped additional away from the dialog at Kutti’s request.
Some particulars will be heard, nonetheless. Floyd requested Freeman about what was within the poll bins she dealt with on election night time. He requested her if she wanted “to know what was already on those ballots inside those ballot boxes?” Freeman responded: “No, we don’t look at them. I couldn’t tell you who had the most, who had the least.”
“So let me ask you this,” Floyd mentioned. “Were those honest ballots?”Freeman responded: “Yeah,” after which went into an in depth rationalization of the method for dealing with and counting the ballots. She mentioned the ballots are in sealed envelopes, so it’s not possible to know which candidate was picked by the voter.
“Democrat or Republican,” she mentioned, “you don’t know that.”
‘MY NAME NEEDS TO BE CLEARED’
In his interview Monday, Floyd mentioned the assembly was organized partly to assist Freeman lower an immunity deal. Freeman is heard on the recording saying she wants a lawyer, however for a unique motive: to show her innocence.In the assembly, Freeman talked about that Fulton County officers had publicly cleared her of any poll fraud. But she expressed fear about one other false accusation that she had donesomething untoward with USB drives used within the vote-counting.
Trump’s lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, had publicly accused Freeman and her daughter of manipulating vote totals whereas passing USB drives between them, “as if they’re vials of heroin and cocaine” – once more, falsely asserting the State Farm Arena video confirmed a criminal offense.
Freeman advised Kutti and Floyd that the USB allegations had been circulated on YouTube, the bodycam footage reveals.“That’s why I want an attorney,” Freeman mentioned, “because I know my name needs to be cleared.”After placing out with Freeman that night time, Floyd mentioned, there was yet another communication together with her, which he declined to element, after which the pursuit was dropped.
In hindsight, Floyd mentioned, “that initial approach in the police station could have and should have been done better.”