WASHINGTON — Saying each had a role in helping preserve American democracy, President Joe Biden awarded the nation’s second-highest civilian honor to a Capitol Police officer from Georgia and two former election workers from Fulton County.
Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter, got some of the biggest applause of the event as the president recounted the abuse they bore after being falsely accused of ballot fraud by then-President Donald Trump and his allies. They later provided testimony to a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol where Trump supporters breached the building and temporarily halted the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
“Both of them were just doing their jobs until they were targeted and threatened by the same predators and peddlers of lies that would fuel the insurrection,” Biden said. “They were literally forced from their homes, facing despicable racist taunts. But despite it all, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss found the courage to testify openly and honestly to the whole country and the world about their experiences and set the record straight about the lies and defend the integrity of our elections. Ruby and Shaye, you don’t deserve what happened to you. But you do deserve the nation’s eternal thanks for showing that dignity and grace of ‘we the people.’ ”
Moss and Freeman, as well as Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, were among 12 honorees during a White House event Friday to mark two years since the Capitol breach. Biden presented each of them with the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Edwards was on the front lines on Jan. 6 and was the first officer to be seriously injured, suffering a blow to her head.
“Knocked unconscious with a traumatic brain injury, she got back up to help hold the line,” Biden told the audience. “The granddaughter of two proud military veterans, she says it was her job to ‘protect America’s symbol of democracy.’ ”
The White House ceremony capped an eventful few weeks of revelations about the events that led to the Jan. 6 attack. Most of them came from the House Jan. 6 committee that released an 845-page report, plus thousands of pages of interview transcripts and documents that shed light on those events.
The report concluded that Trump recklessly promoted lies about voter fraud in Georgia and other states as he sought to overturn Biden’s victory. The scheme involved using the fraud allegations as a pretext for state legislatures, Congress or Vice President Mike Pence to reject the official Biden presidential electors in favor of slates of Trump electors from each state.
The report and testimony detailed how Trump and his allies pressured Georgia officials to overturn Biden’s victory here. That campaign included Trump’s request that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ”find” the 11,780 votes he needed to defeat Biden and pressure on state lawmakers to convene a special session to overturn the election. Some Georgia lawmakers helped spread the false fraud claims.
A Trump campaign official told investigators that Donald Trump Jr. threatened to “tank” Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoff elections in January 2021 if the state Republican Party didn’t back his father’s campaign.
The House panel tied then-President Trump’s efforts directly to the Jan. 6 violence, when hundreds of his supporters stormed the Capitol, temporarily halting congressional certification of Biden’s victory. The Justice Department has charged more than 950 people with crimes ranging from entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds to assaulting police officers to seditious conspiracy.
The fallout from Trump’s campaign also included threats to election workers, including Freeman and Moss. In a hearing this past summer and in recently released interviews, they said they received hundreds of threats. Freeman fled her house at the direction of the FBI and didn’t return for two months.
The report said a member of the Oath Keepers militia convicted of multiple offenses for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection “had a document in his residence with the words “DEATH LIST” written across the top.
“His death list contained just two names: Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss,” the report said.
