Two Georgia election workers are suing former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and One America News Network, claiming they have faced persistent harassment due to the spread of election fraud misinformation.
Ruby Freeman, a temporary worker in Fulton County, and her daughter, Wandrea Moss, a voter registration officer, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday.
The two workers “have become objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment … because of a campaign of malicious lies,” their attorneys said. “Deliberate efforts to spread disinformation about America’s election workers undermine the integrity of American elections … and, accordingly, threaten democracy.”
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The lawsuit names Herring Networks, which owns and operates OAN, and Giuliani as defendants.
The complaint alleges OAN broadcast stories alleging Freeman and Moss engaged in “criminal conspiracy, along with others, to illegally exclude observers during the counting of ballots’ under ‘false pretenses’ so that they could engage in election fraud.”
The lawsuit refers to footage released in December 2020 that showed Freeman and Moss pulling out containers of voter ballots, leading to accusations that the pair added illegal ballots into the count.
Georgia election officials responded to the controversy surrounding the video, insisting illegal ballot counting had not occurred. More broadly, election officials across the federal government and in other states have said they found no evidence supporting claims of a stolen election promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies.
Still, OAN promoted the claims of voter fraud despite public refutations, and as “part of that campaign, OAN repeatedly turned to Giuliani, a member of former President Trump’s campaign team and one of the central orchestrators of the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged,” the lawsuit says.
The allegations presented by OAN led to continued harassment of the pair, according to the lawsuit, which says Freeman fled her home for two months at the recommendation of the FBI. Additionally, strangers attempted to enter Moss’s home to make a “citizen’s arrest.”
The lawsuit charges OAN and Giuliani with defamation, infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy.
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The pair hopes to receive compensatory damages and declarative relief, “stating that the statements authored and published by Defendants identified within this complaint, individually and collectively, were and are false,” according to the lawsuit.
The Washington Examiner reached out to OAN and Giuliani for comment.
Giuliani and OAN face other lawsuits over election fraud claims, including one by Dominion Voting Systems.
