Probe into Jan. 6 gets more bizarre
By now, almost no one who has paid much attention to today’s nexus between politics and show business should be surprised to find Kanye West’s name pop up in the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot probe.
It’s not that the billionaire hip-hop star and Donald Trump pal, who now goes by Ye, had anything to do with what looks increasingly like an attempted coup. But, as I’ve heard folks say many times in his hometown Chicago, he “knows people who know people.”
West’s name popped up in connection with another Chicagoan, Trevian Kutti, a former publicist for Ye who, according to his current spokespeople, cut ties with her before January.
In a bizarre turn for a campaign narrative that has more than its share of the bizarre, Kutti has been accused of trying to intimidate Ruby Freeman, a 62-yearold Georgia campaign worker, into confessing to Trump’s bogus charges of election fraud in Georgia.
Kutti allegedly visited Freeman’s home on Jan. 4 to offer help in the wake of death threats she said she was receiving after being targeted by both Trump and a farright website, The Gateway Pundit.
Remember Trump’s famously recorded Jan. 2 phone call to press Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” after the state’s votes already had been recounted? At the end of the call, Trump says: “Why wouldn’t you want to check out Ruby Freeman?”
Freeman, it turns out, and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss had been receiving threats of violence after the Trump reelection campaign claimed that the women had counted invalid ballots at the Mercedesbenz Stadium where Atlanta votes were being tallied.
Fulton County and Georgia state officials quickly confirmed that the ballots in question were in fact valid. Raffensperger didn’t find “11,780 votes” either.
But Freeman, Raffensperger and their families were harassed and threatened by disappointed Trumpsters, just for doing their legal and civic duty.
An investigation by Reuters, based on previously unreported police recordings, legal filings, interviews with Freeman and police body-camera video obtained through a public-records request, turns up some markedly ominous statements.
Kutti can be heard saying, “I cannot say what specifically will take place. I just know that it will disrupt your freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members.”
In a line that may live through the ages, Kutti says in the police video, “You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up.” She also mentions that “federal people” were involved.
Freeman and Moss sued The Gateway Pundit for defamation earlier this month. But, as the latest of many people to have caught the short end of Trump’s casual attitude toward unfavorable facts or truth, where do Freeman and her daughter go to get their peace of mind back?
More broadly, how do the rest of us deal with the continuing assaults that Trump’s false claims of a stolen election make on our faith in free and fair elections?
The parade of bizarre stories coming out of the House Select Committee hearings investigating the events of Jan. 6 begin to make our eyes glaze over. Yet, a thorough investigation is necessary, even if it seems to be constantly corrupted by political polarization.
Though the principal character in this drama is Trump, the supporting characters, regardless of party, hold the future of our republic and the legitimacy of our democracy in their hands.
That’s why we owe a special debt to the hardworking citizens who take the time not only to vote but to volunteer to help our elections work.
Ruby Freeman and the many other volunteers like her deserve our gratitude and support, not threats and ridicule, for taking on the thankless task of counting those votes honestly.
With that in mind, I don’t know Kutti or who sent her. But since she is an experienced crisis manager and, according to her Instagram page, a self-described “media manipulator,” maybe she could do some image recovery work for Freeman and her family, pro bono, if nothing disrupts her freedom first.
Clarence Page is a member of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.