Kanye West publicist went to a Georgia election worker's home to pressure her into admitting baseless election fraud accusations or risk being arrested

A former publicist for Kanye West and R. Kelly came to the home of a Georgia election worker and pressured her to confess to baseless election fraud accusations.
Ben Gray/AP

A publicist for Kanye West pressured a Georgia election worker to confess to unfounded election fraud claims.
Trevian Kutti paid a visit to Ruby Freeman, warning that she'd be arrested in 48 hours if she didn't.
Bodycam footage obtained by Reuters shows Kutti offering to "move" and "secure" Freeman.

A publicist for Kanye West pressured a Georgia election worker, Ruby Freeman, to confess to baseless allegations of election fraud and warned that Freeman would go to jail within 48 hours if she didn't in January, Reuters reports.

The 62-year-old Freeman, who signed up to be a temporary worker helping process and count absentee ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, suffered violent harassment and threats after former President Donald Trump and his allies singled her out as the architect to steal the election from him in Georgia.

So when Travien Kutti, claiming to be a "high-profile individual," showed up at her door on January 4 warning that she was in danger, Freeman was reluctant to talk to her alone. She called the police, and asked to meet with Kutti at a police station where their interaction was recorded, Reuters reported.

"We didn't want to frighten you, but we had to find you in this time frame," Kutti told Freeman in police body camera footage obtained and posted online by Reuters.

—Reuters (@Reuters) December 10, 2021

Kutti told Freeman that she had "put in placement a way to move you, a way to secure you, from what may be secured over the next 48 hours."

"We have probably have 48 hours in which to move you," Kutti explained. "We would do it on your schedule. I cannot say specifically what will take place. I just know that it will disrupt your freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members."

Kutti then said she would call a communications consultant named Harrison Ford to talk specifics and asked the officer for privacy. After the officer recording the bodycam footage walked away, Freeman told Reuters that Kutti and the man pressured Freeman to confess to voter fraud. Freeman recalled Kutti saying, "If you don't tell everything, you're going to jail."

Two days later, on the morning on the morning of January 6, pro-Trump protesters descended on Freeman's home, some equipped with bullhorns. Freeman had left her home the day before on the advice of the FBI and remained in hiding for two months, staying in Airbnbs and avoiding using credit cards that could pinpoint her location, Reuters reported.

"Whether you choose not to deal with us, I am not your enemy," Kutti told Freeman in the conversationon January 4 describing Freeman as "a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up."

Kutti went on to tell Freeman that she works "for some of the biggest names in the industry," saying, "crisis is my thing."

"I want her to be comfortable, but I want her to advise her that there are federal people who are involved here, and I don't know who is connected to who," Kutti told the police officer recording the footage. "And I really need for her to be as nonchalant as possible."

Kutti's LinkedIn profile describes her as "a respected market and brand strategist to fashion, entertainment and media industries." In addition to her public relations work for West, she also previously worked as a spokeswoman for R. Kelly, the disgraced R&B singer who was convicted on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges in September.

Like West, who changed his name to "Ye" in October, Kutti has publicly supported Trump and other Republicans, and has worked on the campaign of Angela Stanton King, a Republican who ran for Congress in 2020 for the late Rep. John Lewis' seat in Atlanta, the Chicago Sun-Times reported in August 2020.

The Sun-Times reported that Kutti recently worked in Illinois as a lobbyist for a marijuana company and had rankled Gov. J.B. Pritzker's administration by attacking the top official working on marijuana issue, Toi Huntichson, as a "slave" on social media and said she'd "keep my knee" on Huntichson's neck.

It is unclear how the visit to Freeman came about and who else was involved. Kutti did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Fulton County's outgoing elections director Rick Barron told Insider in an email that he had no knowledge of Kutti's overtures to Freeman and no contact with her.

"It feels surreal to read about this," Barron said. "As a non-partisan this makes me fear for our democratic institutions. I believe in government institutions rather than political parties. Those institutions have stood and evolved since the beginning of our republic. This was an obvious plot involving an ally of the former president to change the outcome of the election by pressuring someone to confess to crimes they didn't commit."

Freeman and her daughter Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, a full-time employee in the Fulton County elections division, are now suing the Gateway Pundit, a popular right-wing website, for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The lawsuit claims that the website first identified them to their readers spread disinformation and unfounded allegations placing the two women at the center for a grand, corrupt conspiracy to commit election fraud and steal the election from former President Donald Trump that led both to suffer harassment and threats.

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