As with the Mafia and NRA, let’s make unspeakable Trumpist election overthrow ploys way too expensive
Want to join a direct, immediate, non-violent protest against the worst, unremitting election fraud cataclysm in our history? Donate as I did yesterday to the legal defence team backing the abused, yet courageous mother and daughter — both temp GA election workers — badly mugged by the notorious Gateway Pundit magazine.
Contact Protect Democracy – a non-profit and non-partisan team “focused on resisting [U.S.] authoritarianism.” Show support for the Freeman defamation suit against a low-life gang who ambushed two innocents by acting out Trump’s venomous lies – egged on by name-specific libels by the Liar-in-chief and lackey Rudy Giuliani.
“I want the defendants to know that my daughter and I are real people who deserve justice, and I never want them to do this to anyone else, ” Ms. Freeman informed The New York Times. The lawsuit by two black women seeks compensatory damages, citing constant falsehoods that “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.” Advised by the FBI, Freeman had to leave her home for two months.
Declared Freeman attorney Brittany Williams, Gateway Pundit knowingly told lies that “cannot be divorced from the devastation they leave behind — both for the targeted individuals and for our democracy itself.” In addition to Protect Democracy, Freeman and Moss are represented by the DuBose Miller, Dowd Bennett and Kastorf law firm plus the Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic.
As low as Trump goes
It’s bad enough when Trump’s mendacity targets morally superior public figures (that’s nearly every one else), and politicians at least chose the line of fire. Not two modestly paid, law-abiding, democracy-supporting election workers. When Trump victims are nameless (Muslims, Hispanic immigrants, socialists) and numberless (pandemic fatalities), we struggle to internalize such generalized suffering. But nothing like a calculated specific ambush on minority women to stir protest – and not really to change an election outcome, just stomp on scapegoated “enemies.” Trump lies demanded further lies and alleged foes to abuse. If anyone discovers how to support the Freemans directly, list contact urls below.
For those who missed this horror story, here’s a summary from the superb special Reuters report, “Trump campaign demonized two Georgia election workers – and death threats followed:”
Desperate to overturn his election loss, Donald Trump and his team spun a sprawling voter-fraud fiction, casting two rank-and-file election workers, a mother and her daughter, as the main villains. The women endured months of death threats and racist taunts – and one went into hiding.
In order to buttress now predictable, laughable, evidence-free election fraud claims, Trump and cohorts had to fuel the hew and cry that his single, 50 state elections – none others – were corruptly rigged. Thus the reign of terror against innocents. Freeman said strangers twice tried to barge into her home and perform a “citizen’s arrest.” The FBI recommended that Freeman shut down her “doxed” (harassed) online and mall handbag business, which she was forced to do, plus fleeing her home on Jan 6 as the FBI feared corollary belligerence.
NBC news reported that Gateway Pundit upped its attacks when identifying “Freeman in a surveillance video from a Georgia voting center first presented by Trump campaign lawyer Jacki Pick to Georgia’s State Senate on Dec. 3.” Pick claimed someone with “the name Ruby across her shirt somewhere” found a “suitcase” full of ballots from “underneath a table.” Needless to say, these phony claims were instantly dismissed by both Georgia’s secretary of state and its Bureau of Investigation. There was never a suitcase and nothing even suspicious. Election workers, suspending the ballot counting for the night, simply packed up to restart the next day. In short, the most innocent, routine action imaginable turned into phony Trumpian screams for his victimhood. Some joke.
Ripples of malice spread
What this story proves is that no one is safe from rightwing attacks that devastate lives without remorse or cause (other than ginning up racial hatred and/or fundraising). Perhaps this defamation suit will achieve what others are yet to do: put permanent propagandists out of business and establish boundaries and precedents. Just as many expect legal action against Trump in NY and GA could do great damage to his alleged billions, let the defamation and anti-fraud suits begin. Only grievous financial penalties, even jail time (item: Jan 6 insurrection) will dent those eager for violent means to achieve nefarious ends.
In fact, Trump lies invoked Freeman 18 tunes during that infamous, taped call made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, absurdly trying to coerce a criminal redo of state certified elections. According to NBC, Trump called Freeman “a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler.” Gateway Pundit articles continued to accuse Freeman and Moss of voter fraud during the spring and summer.
In a statement to NBC, Freeman said, “People have said the most vile and violent and racist things about me and my family—on the phone, on my social media accounts, on email, and in person. Things you wouldn’t believe. The toll of all this on your life, day in and day out, it wears on you . . . when I’m out in public and I hear someone call my name, I jump. Just hearing my name scares me.”
If not Trumpers, who belongs in the docket?
Who is not astonished with the delayed legal indictments of Trump for this Georgia phone coercion, matching his other most heinous criminality? Ditto, why have New York prosecutors not yet named Trump and/or Trump, Inc. as tax frauds? If Trump and misfit enablers like Gateway Pundit are not vulnerable to justice, our discriminatory legal system needs massive, quick reform. If Trump and those awash with malice who struck at Freeman and Moss are not indictable, who would be? This defamation suit follows similar lawsuits by election equipment makers against defamation by Fox News, Newsmax and One America News.
There is something especially vicious when a powerful politician descends to abusing innocents in an unsuccessful deception he knew would fail. The power that Trump sought has been frittered away, his legacy that of an inept, lying, dishonest incumbent who blew his own re-election. Time for painful financial penalties, even threats of incarceration, however unlikely. Freeman and Moss should go down in history as courageous heroes, ordinary people unfairly persecuted yet capable of redefining legal, historic thresholds that unprincipled propagandists violate at their high peril. Thus my donation.
COMMENTS