Ruby Freeman was caught on video in Fulton County, taking suitcases out from under tables after polls were closed, then was seen stuffing ballots into machines.
The “suitcases” were official ballot containers. The “double-counted” ballots were only counted once. The “smoking gun” video for voting fraud showed normal ballot counting.
State and federal investigators quickly debunked a conspiracy theory sparked by surveillance video of ballot counting at State Farm Arena in 2020. That didn’t stop Donald Trump from making the video the centerpiece of his campaign to overturn the election in Georgia — even though some on his own team knew the voting fraud claims were dubious, documents reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show.
Federal Judge Beryl A. Howell entered a default judgment in August finding Guiliani liable for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and punitive damage claims. She ordered Giuliani to cover Freeman and Moss’ attorney’s fees and set a jury trial to determine the amount he would be forced to pay in damages. Freeman and Moss’ lawyers had asked the jury to award them $24 million each in compensatory damages with additional punitive damages. The jury ultimately ordered Giuliani to pay $75 million in punitive damages, $33 million in compensatory damages and $40 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
One top Trump adviser even called the claims “conspiracy s— beamed down from the mothership.”
Trump’s claims about the video now feature prominently in a 45-page federal indictment that accuses the former president of an illegal scheme to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. The indictment says Trump and unnamed co-conspirators “used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results.”
Freeman and Moss, a mother and daughter who worked the 2020 election, sued Giuliani in late 2021 for his role in falsely accusing them of engaging in election fraud while they were counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Moss was, at the time, a full-time worker at the Fulton County Elections Department, and Freeman volunteered to help with the vote count.