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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has spent years following infighting, funding lapses and legal challenges plaguing the state’s ethics commission. To see an interactive timeline detailing all our coverage, go to MyAJC.com.
Attorney General Sam Olens on Thursday defended his office’s actions in handling a controversial ethics memo and said a judge was wrong to blame his team for failing to divulge its existence in a whistleblower lawsuit.
Olens, in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, again laid the blame for any failure to produce documents at the feet of state ethics commission director Holly LaBerge. It was LaBerge, Olens said, who failed to produce copies of texts and emails she described in the memo that showed top aides to Gov. Nathan Deal reached out to her in July 2012, a week before the commission was to rule on complaints against Deal’s 2010 campaign.
The attorney general also said that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville was wrong Wednesday in sanctioning Olens' office and fining it $10,000. The judge levied an identical fine against LaBerge. In his order, Glanville also accused LaBerge of being "dishonest and non-transparent."
The attorney for former ethics commission director Stacey Kalberman sought the sanctions, saying the texts and emails should have been provided in Kalberman’s suit against the ethics commission. Kalberman claimed in the 2012 suit that she was forced from office a year earlier for aggressively investigating the complaints against Deal. A Fulton County jury in April agreed and awarded her $700,000 in damages plus an additional $450,000 in back pay and attorneys fees. Three other whistleblower cases related to the commission and LaBerge were later settled for an additional $1.8 million.
The existence of the memo, in which LaBerge said she felt pressured by Deal's aides, did not become public until after the case, when the AJC obtained a copy of it in July.
Olens said his staff attorney who handled the Kalberman case “on numerous occasions after receipt of the memo specifically asked (LaBerge) if there was more documentation she needed to send us and was repeatedly told, ‘No.’ ”
Glanville’s decision to order sanctions has not ended the saga.
Olens said his team is considering an appeal of the judge’s ruling, and LaBerge’s private attorney, Lee Parks, has already pledged to appeal.
Also, the ethics commission, formally known as the Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, announced late Thursday that it will hold a specially called meeting for 4:30 p.m. Friday. The only items on the agenda are closed-door sessions to discuss pending litigation and personnel issues.
Parks, meanwhile, accused Olens and Deal of colluding for their own political gain.
“The real stench here is coming from the Capitol, where a sitting governor was able to cloak his efforts to strong-arm the ethics commission into dismissing numerous complaints detailing rather blatant ethics violations by the Deal campaign, by having the attorney general hide the memo that documented those strong arm tactics,” Parks said in a statement.
Republicans, coming to Deal’s defense, have noted that Parks’ Atlanta law firm held a fundraiser for Deal’s opponent, Sen. Jason Carter, D-Atlanta, in July.
Olens bristled at any suggestion his office acted based on politics.
“Our lawyers pride themselves on being lawyers, not politicians,” Olens said. “I’m on a ballot. They aren’t and they are personally offended when people challenge them as making decisions for political reasons rather than legal reasons.”
Deal’s campaign said Parks’ comments reek of sour grapes.
“The governor is focused on his campaign and creating new jobs for Georgians,” Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said. “This sounds like someone trying to distract attention from a court ruling that didn’t go his way.”
Olens on Thursday stood by his office’s decision not to give the memo to attorneys for Kalberman.
He has said the memo did not meet the criteria of documents Kalberman’s team demanded as part of the lawsuit.
But the memo also includes word-for-word details of the texts LaBerge received from Deal Chief of Staff Chris Riley and chief counsel Ryan Teague. At least five lawyers in Olens’ office reviewed the memo, but it remains unclear whether any of them specifically asked LaBerge if she still had copies of the texts. It was revealed last month that she did.
Asked whether his staff asked LaBerge specifically for the texts, Olens said, “I’m not sure we totally know the answer.”
Olens said Senior Assistant Attorney General Bryan Webb, who defended the commission and LaBerge against Kalberman’s lawsuit, testified that “on several occasions” he asked for any additional documentation “and was told none was responsive, which clearly was not accurate.”
Meanwhile, the AJC has learned, Glanville met privately Wednesday with lawyers for the state, Kalberman and state-appointed attorneys for the commission and LaBerge, prior to issuing his ruling. LaBerge’s private attorney, Parks, was not there.
During the meeting in his chambers, Glanville was reportedly openly critical of Olens’ staff — much more so than he was in his order.
Edward Lindsey, a former Republican leader in the state House who represented Olens’ office against the call for sanctions, said Glanville’s message in private was “essentially the same” as in the order.
Olens and Deal both face re-election in November, and their opponents have used the ethics saga, and now Glanville’s ruling, to pound the two Republicans.
“Today’s sanctions are further proof that Sam Olens has once again failed Georgia as a lawyer and a leader,” Democratic challenger Greg Hecht said in a statement. “As Attorney General, Olens failed to prosecute corruption and has been sanctioned for misconduct.”
Olens’ campaign countered Wednesday with a letter signed by five former State Bar of Georgia presidents defending Olens’ action and disagreeing with Glanville’s decision.
“It is clear that this was a good-faith discovery dispute that is very common in civil litigation,” they wrote.
Olens, too, said Hecht is not wise to criticize the career attorneys in his office.
“It’s disturbing that an individual who wants my job so readily attacks them in the course of this campaign for his political gain,” Olens said. “These lawyers deserve a better defense of their actions, not cheap shots.”
In the governor’s race, meanwhile, Carter said he’s “troubled that the state’s top lawyers and the top ethics official would improperly conceal evidence to shield Governor Deal from accountability.”
No evidence has ever been presented that showed Deal personally was involved in any of the decisions of the ethics commission or the Attorney General’s Office. The commission dismissed major complaints against his campaign and he agreed to pay $3,350 in fees for technical defects in his campaign reports.
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