Court denies Harrison Floyd's appeal in Trump election interference case
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. - A Georgia court has denied the appeal of one of the co-defendents in Fulton County's election interference case against former President Donald Trump.
Harrison Floyd, the former director of Black Voices for Trump, had argued in a motion filed in October 2023 that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office lacked the authority to investigate or bring election-related charges against him without a referral from the State Election Board.
Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, denied the motion but allowed Floyd and his legal team to have his appeal heard by the Georgia Court of Appeals.
On Wednesday, in a one-sentence order, the court denied the appeal of his Plea in Bar motion.
It is unknown if Floyd will try to appeal to the Georgia Surpreme Court.
What is Harrison Floyd charged with?
Floyd was indicted along with Trump and 17 others in August 2023 by a Fulton County grand jury and is accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
The charges against Floyd stem from allegations of harassment of Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker who had been falsely accused of election fraud by Trump and his supporters. Floyd took part in a Jan. 4, 2021, conversation in which Freeman was told she "needed protection" and was pressured to make false statements about election fraud, the indictment says.
Stephen Cliffgard Lee, a pastor from Illinois, went to Freeman’s home in December 2020. He intended to claim to be offering her help in order to get her to make false statements about what happened at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, where ballots were being tallied, the indictment says.
After Lee failed to connect with Freeman at her house, he sought help from Floyd, a leader in the organization Black Voices for Trump, telling Floyd that Freeman was afraid to talk to him because he was a white man, the indictment says. Floyd solicited the help of Trevian Kutti, who had worked as a spokesperson for R. Kelly and Kanye West. She traveled to Atlanta from Chicago in early January 2021 to try to connect with Freeman.
Kutti arranged to meet Freeman at a suburban police precinct and they spoke for about an hour, with Floyd joining the meeting by phone. Kutti and Floyd told Freeman that she needed protection and that they could help her, but in reality, they were trying to influence her testimony and get her to lie about what happened at State Farm Arena as votes were being counted, the indictment says.
Floyd was the only one of the 19 defendants in the case to spend time behind bars at the Fulton County Jail in August. While the other defendants in the case had their lawyers reach out to prosecutors for a bond agreement before turning themselves in at the jail, Floyd showed up on Aug. 24 without a lawyer or a bond agreement. He was released Aug. 30 after his lawyer negotiated a $100,000 bond.
In addition to the charges in Georgia, Floyd also faces federal charges that accuse him of aggressively confronting two FBI agents sent to serve him with a grand jury subpoena.
Remaining a supporter of the former president, Floyd requested in February that his bond conditions be relaxed to allow him to work on Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Additionally, he sought the court's permission to use the social media platform X for discussions unrelated to the case, following previous issues arising from comments about Freeman.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
