Former Trump Campaign Aide Admits Involvement In Incident Involving Kanye West Publicist And Georgia Election Worker
The Uprising is an independent publication supported by readers like you! If you appreciate original investigative journalism, please sign up!
Famed actor Harrison Ford had nothing to do with the strange meeting between an embattled Georgia election worker and a one time publicist for the hip hop artist Kanye West. It was actually Harrison Floyd, who worked on former President Trump’s re-election campaign last year.
Floyd was the executive director of “Black Voices For Trump,” which was the centerpiece of the former president’s effort to woo African American voters in last year’s election. Speaking to The Uprising, Floyd claims he was pulled into the situation in December 2020 after hearing “chatter” from attorneys and other well-connected individuals who asked if the poll worker wanted to confess to engaging in election fraud. According to Floyd, they wanted to verify if the election worker, Ruby Freeman, was in danger and, if she wanted to come forward, to connect the election worker with people who could put her in touch with Trump himself.
“Lawyers and different people from all across the country were asking me … if I had heard anything,” Floyd said. “They were saying, ‘Well, if she wants immunity let her know that I would be able to give it to her.’”
The story of the meeting between Trevian Kutti, a publicist who worked for West, and Ruby Freeman, who was falsely accused by Trump and his allies of being involved in election fraud, first broke in Reuters earlier this month. At the time, Reuters reported that Kutti offered to put Freeman on the phone with a man named “Harrison Ford” who had “authoritative powers to get you protection.” However, as The Uprising outlined on Sunday night, there were multiple indications that Kutti was actually referring to Floyd.
Floyd has now come forward to admit he was indeed the man on the phone with Freeman and to share his side of the story.
“I was never contacted to confirm whether or not I was or was not the person on the phone with Ms. Freeman,” Floyd told The Uprising. “If I had been contacted, I would have been up front and honest and I would have said, ‘Yeah that was me.’”
A spokesperson for Reuters did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In his conversation with The Uprising, Floyd was adamant that he was not working with the Trump campaign as he got involved with Freeman during the final months of last year.
“Since November 15 [2020], I have not worked in an official capacity with the campaign. I have not spoken with anybody with the campaign in an official capacity,” Floyd said. “The only conversations I have had were in a personal capacity.”
Freeman was brought into the spotlight by Trump and members of his legal team who highlighted a misleading video showing her handling ballots and described it as supposed proof of election fraud. Amid a steady stream of baseless allegations from Trump, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other officials have declared there was no widespread fraud in Georgia or any other state during the 2020 election. The concerns about the footage of Freeman were specifically refuted by local officials who confirmed she properly handled ballots. On December 2, Freeman and her daughter, who was also an election worker in 2020, filed a lawsuit against a far right website that spread false allegations about their conduct. That suit claimed, among other things, that Freeman and her family received death threats and harassment due to the accusations. A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
Floyd briefly ran for Congress in Georgia in 2019. According to him, in December 2020, one month after the election, he began hearing “chatter” from contacts in the state that Freeman “needed immunity” and “wanted to get a message to the president.” In other words, he was led to believe that Freeman was perhaps getting ready to admit participating in fraud if she was able to secure protection from Trump.
“I started getting phone calls from a lot of people saying they were hearing that Ruby Freeman wanted immunity and that she wanted to talk to the president,” Floyd said. “Lawyers and different people from all across the country were asking me if I had heard anything and, you know, they were saying, ‘Well, if she wants immunity, let her know that I would be able to give it to her, so reach back out to me if you hear something.’”
In a statement about her lawsuit, Freeman has described the allegations she engaged in any impropriety as “lies.” She could not be reached for comment.
Floyd repeatedly declined to name individuals he was in contact with about Freeman. At the time, a loose confederation of Trump allies that included his legal teams, campaign aides, White House staff, influential supporters, the former president’s family members, and far right activists were working on efforts to unearth evidence of election fraud and overturn Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden.
“I was getting so many phone calls from so many different people, like, I can’t be, I think, that specific,” he said. “My phone was going off nonstop about this.”
When asked why he was confident the people he was in touch with were in a position to grant Freeman protection, Floyd said: “For me, this wasn’t about them having any power, it was about what I could do at that moment in time.” He suggested that, due to his past position on the Trump campaign, he felt he could “relay” requests from Freeman to the right people.
According to Floyd, he got involved more deeply after a December phone call from a mysterious “chaplain who has a background in law enforcement.” That person allegedly indicated they previously tried to speak with Freeman and were unsuccessful.
“He had a law enforcement background and people had connected with him,” Floyd said. ”They were trying to see if he could connect with her on a faith-based lane.”
Floyd claimed the chaplain felt Freeman was “super skittish and scared … because he was an old white man and she was a Black woman scared in Georgia.” Hearing this is what motivated Floyd to get involved and he “offered to get on the phone” with Freeman.
“I’m a Black guy, I’m from Georgia, and I know how they do Black folks down in Georgia,” Floyd explained, adding: “The conversation was based around her getting immunity.”
Floyd repeatedly declined to identify the “chaplain,” but he said they were not in the U.S. military.
“It was in a personal capacity man, that’s my business,” said Floyd.
At the time, Floyd said he was based in Washington D.C. and was unable to travel to Georgia to meet with Freeman. Ultimately, it was Kutti and another man she identified as “Garrison” who came to Freeman’s door on January 4. As reported by Reuters, Freeman called 911 when they arrived due to the threats she had received. Based on recordings of that call, Freeman asked the Cobb County police to come to her home so she could safely speak with Kutti and hear what the publicist had to offer her.
“I want them to come back and tell me what it is they can do for me,” Freeman said.
The officer eventually allowed Freeman and Kutti to meet inside a local police station. Body cam footage of that meeting, published by Reuters, showed Kutti saying that there was an unspecified situation that “may be authorized in the next 48 hours” and would “disrupt” Freeman’s “freedom.” Kutti suggested she could help Freeman avoid that fate and “move” her to a secure location before offering to put her on the phone with Floyd, who the publicist described as a man who could describe the “situation” at a “detailed level.” At that point, the body cam footage ended because the officer stepped away to allow the pair to converse privately.
According to Floyd, Kutti’s remarks were misconstrued by Reuters as a threat. Instead, he claimed there was a plan to move Freeman that would only have worked if it was implemented within two days.
“Trevian said she had 48 hours to talk to her to try to get her the protection, and security, and be able to move her because I had already spoken with some people that I knew,” Floyd said.
That 48 hour period following Kutti’s January 4 police station meeting with Freeman was also the final two days before Trump’s election loss was due to be certified at the U.S. Capitol.
“I remember going into the call thinking that there was a lot riding on it,” Floyd said, later adding, “If a federal election worker is about to come forward and say, ‘Hey I got some evidence that I need immunity for and I need to get a message to the president before Congress certifies this election, that’s a pretty big thing.”
Ultimately, Freeman did not take Kutti and Floyd up on the offer to spirit her away from her home and have her join efforts to dispute the election. Freeman has not presented any information about issues with the election and instead sued some of those who accused her of fraud. Kutti has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Floyd said that he was “aware” of Kutti before they worked together to approach Freeman.
“I had already known Trevian through the campaign. I had met her at a Trump rally, she had been to a bunch of different Black Voices events, people were saying she had all these connections,” Floyd said of Kutti.
Kutti previously worked as a spokesperson for West and the disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly. In the days since the Reuters story broke, West’s team has issued statements distancing him from Kutti. At the same time, Kutti published Instagram posts indicating she was positioned next to the stage for West’s concert with Drake at the LA Memorial Coliseum concert on December 9. In a prior statement to The Uprising, Pierre Rougier, a spokesperson for West, insisted that Kutti was “not associated” with West when she visited Freeman’s home earlier this year or at any point afterward.
“Trevian Kutti was not associated with Kanye West or any of his enterprises at the times of the facts that are reported in various articles or since these facts occurred,” Rougier wrote in an email.
West has been a prominent Trump supporter. The hip hop artist unsuccessfully ran for president last year on his own “Birthday Party” line, but his campaign staff included multiple Republican operatives. As a result, there has been widespread speculation it was an effort to help Trump by taking votes away from Biden. Rougier did not respond to specific questions about whether West’s team had any connections with Trump’s campaign. West has denied those rumors. The allegation West’s onetime publicist worked directly with a former Trump campaign aide to unearth evidence to support the former president’s baseless election fraud claims could revive those questions.
For his part, Floyd said he did not know whether Kutti was working for West when they approached Freeman.
“I have no idea about what was factually going on with her in any capacity other than what transpired with this phone call and what happened,” Floyd said.
This story was updated at 5:36 pm with additional comment and clarification from Floyd.
If they had successfully framed Ruby Freeman on the 4th that would also have effected the GA Senate run offs which were Jan 5th. They were interfering in an election in process.
DOUG COLLINS !!! Doug Collins was a Chaplain in the military!!!