Originally Published: August 15, 2023 4:42 p.m.
The sprawling Fulton County indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants for their alleged efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election includes a brief recounting — and a set of charges — related to one of the more bizarre episodes mounted by Trump and his allies in the final days of 2020.
This particular episode centers on three individuals — Rev. Stephen Lee, Harrison Floyd, and Trevian Kutti — who District Attorney Fani Willis, in the indictment, accuses of "harassment and intimidation" directed toward a local election worker, Ruby Freeman.
TPM has extensive new reporting on the events leading up to the trio's efforts to pressure Freeman, documenting in new detail how the key players in the alleged scheme were linked to Trump's campaign team and allies, including the "Black Voices For Trump" organization, the "My Pillow" pitchman and prominent election denier Mike Lindell, and the vast network of attorneys who were working with the former president to challenge the election result.
The story of how the election plot ended up on Freeman's doorstep is a complex and winding tale involving one of the most persistent "Big Lie" conspiracy theories, the eccentric rapper-turned-Hitler enthusiast Ye, frantic 911 calls, and a chaplain who viewed himself as a first responder for "demonic births." It all culminated in Kutti's January 2021 visit to Freeman's home. During that meeting, Kutti warned Freeman that she might be in unspecified danger if she did not admit to thoroughly debunked voter fraud allegations.
There has already been extensive reporting about the visits to Freeman's home. In 2021 and 2022, Reuters published a series of stories describing Kutti and Lee's role in the incidents. I was the first reporter to definitively identify Floyd and his part in the episode in a pair of articles on Substack. However, even if you have heard some of this story before, the full picture that we can now paint shows both the importance and the utter strangeness of this moment in Trump's battle to thwart the vote. The new information that we are revealing here for the first time includes previously unreported comments from one of the co-defendants, social media posts that point towards Trump's White House, and allegations of Kutti's past "weird and unsettling" behavior.
Willis' indictment is the fourth against the former president in recent weeks and the second related to his attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. In a brief press conference after the indictment was unveiled, the district attorney described the alleged charges as the result of a "criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in this state." The alleged conspiracy included multiple visits to Freeman's home that the indictment described as being orchestrated by Lee, Kutti, and Floyd. All three were charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit solicitation of false statements and writings, one count each of influencing witnesses, and one count each, along with all the other co-defendants, of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Lee alone was charged with two additional counts of criminal attempt to commit influencing witnesses.
Lee, Kutti, and Floyd did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story. Spokespeople for Willis' office also did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
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