Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Georgian election workers were targeted by conspiracy theories about vote-rigging. They sued One America News Network and its top executives as well as Rudy Giuliani, former president Donald Trump’s ex lawyer, for allegedly spreading lies.

Wandrea “Shaye”, who is a Fulton County voter register officer, filed the defamation case in Washington, D.C., along with Ruby Freeman, her mother, as she was working for 2020.

San Diego’s Herring Networks is the target of the lawsuit. It owns and runs One America News Network as well as its chief executive Robert Herring and president Charles Herring and journalist Chanel Rion.

Giuliani (Trump’s former lawyer) was named as another defendant. Giuliani was a frequent guest on OAN’s programs. Giuliani is also a promoter of Trump’s false claims of voter fraud which cost him his 2020 election.

OAN reports that Moss, Freeman and others were wrongly accused by OAN of fabricating secret batches of ballots to run through voting machines and help Joe Biden defeat Trump.

These claims are unsupported by evidence, and have repeatedly been debunked in Georgia by election officials.

Robert Herring Sr. OAN Chief Executive stated that he did not worry about the lawsuit, and that his network was doing nothing wrong.

The lawsuit was dismissed by he, who said: “I’ve read everything and it makes me laugh.” I’m laughing at the other four to five people who are suing my. It will eventually turn against them and move the opposite way.

Charles Herring and Rion did not respond immediately to our request for comment.

Moss and Freeman have filed the defamation lawsuits in the same month. Freeman and Moss also sued Gateway Pundit. The Gateway Pundit claimed that the Gateway Pundit’s unverified reports sparked months of harassment and threats to their lives.

Gateway Pundit has not responded to an email that was sent via its website for comments.

Additionally to the removal of the Freeman-Moss reports from OAN’s sites and other media channels, this lawsuit also seeks punitive as well compensatory damages.

False allegations were first brought forward by a Trump campaign attorney during a hearing Dec. 3, 2017, of Georgia state legislators. Freeman, Moss, and others worked in Fulton County that is heavily Democratic, including Atlanta. Biden made a strong showing, helping to secure a narrow victory for the Democrat.

Trump and his Republican surrogates used video surveillance to see the ballot count at State Farm Arena and falsely accused Freeman and Moss late at night, on Election Day (November 3, 2020), of processing “suitcases” containing fake ballots.

The complaint states that Giuliani “amplified” the video, posting it about on social media, while OAN and its hosts took Giuliani’s statements and published them to millions.

Officials from the Republican State Secretary Brad Raffensperger swiftly denied the accusations. They explained that “suitcases”, which were standard-sized ballot containers, were used to count the votes. The state monitor was an impartial observer and investigator.

Giuliani falsely stated that video footage captured the women performing “surreptitious illicit activity” and acting suspiciously like “drug dealers passing out dope.”

Trump personally called Freeman 18x in an early January telephone conversation in which he asked Georgia officials for changes to the state’s results. Freeman was described by Trump as “a well-known political operative”, who “stuffed the ballot box.”