The two Black co-defendants in Donald Trump’s election-related conspiracy trial in Fulton County have been playing the race card in their post-indictment social media posts.
One of them, Harrison Floyd, is the former head of an organization called “Black Voices for Trump.” The other is Trevian Kutti, a former publicist of rapper Ye and singer R. Kelly. Both face multiple charges over their alleged efforts to intimidate Atlanta election worker Ruby Freeman into falsely admitting she cheated Trump out of a 2020 election victory in Georgia. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Floyd’s social media posts came to light after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed a motion seeking to revoke his bond over alleged witness intimidation. The motion cites posts that Floyd directed at several potential witnesses in the trial, including Freeman, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his COO Gabriel Sterling and former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis (who recently accepted a plea deal in the same case).
Floyd’s lawyer claimed that Willis’ motion shows she’s out to get his client because he’s a Black conservative; and in response to the motion, Floyd quoted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas saying at his 1991 confirmation hearing that he’s the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”
The posts cited in the motion to revoke Floyd’s bail are all preposterous, but let’s focus on the race-specific ones. In one example, he claimed Black Democrats “want the ‘Black Trump Guy’ to tell on ‘RACIST WHITE REPUBLICANS’” and then suggests that Raffensperger and the Georgia governor are the real racists.
The Fulton County indictment alleges that conservative activist Stephen Lee (a fellow co-defendant) told Floyd that Freeman was afraid to speak with him when he approached her house because he is a white man. And Floyd has suggested this indicates something nefarious: “If Ruby Freeman didn’t trust White people to help her … What did she say to the black people that offered to help her?” More recently he’s posted a series of cherrypicked audio clips of Freeman that Floyd seems to think exculpate him.
Kutti, meanwhile, has engaged in her own race-based delusions. Just last month, she said she’s looking forward to “redeeming Black women in politics by becoming Press Secretary to the 47th President of the United States @realDonaldTrump.” I don’t see that happening.
What I do see in Kutti and Floyd’s posts, though, are two desperate Black MAGA acolytes who are trying to do what they do best: use race to curry favor with the MAGA base.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.