Capitol Recap: Trump is strong in Georgia donations, not necessarily donors

But an analysis of campaign finance reports shows that about half of Georgia GOP donors are backing one of his rivals.

The former president holds strong leads in Georgia polls, but that hasn’t silenced critics within the Republican Party who are concerned about his continued pushing of lies about election fraud, the role he played in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his mounting legal problems.

They worry that will all sink his chances in a rematch against President Joe Biden.

So many of them are spending their time and money on alternatives.

Some haven’t necessarily settled on a candidate, but they’re putting their money behind efforts to derail Trump.

Mark Dowis of Peachtree City gave $250 to Chris Christie, even though he likens odds of the former New Jersey governor winning the White House to a “snowball’s chance of surviving an Albany, Georgia, summer day.

“I gave because I want Chris Christie on the debate stage on the off chance that Trump chooses to participate,” Dowis said. “Chris knows the guy as well or better than any of the other declared candidates,” so he could better challenge Trump on national TV.

Haley’s strong performance in fundraising is a bit of a surprise, given her low poll numbers in the state. But the former governor of South Carolina has benefited from the help of well-connected Georgia strategist Eric Tanenblatt. As a result, she has collected more from donors in Georgia than all but five other states.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has continued to finish second in polling to Trump in the state, and Georgians have kicked in about $210,000 of the $20 million he’s raised overall.

But DeSantis faces a donor problem. Records show most of his donors have “maxed out” by giving the $3,300 limit for primaries. That means he’ll have to find others to contribute. Only a small share, about 15%, count as small-dollar donors who gave less than $200.

Naturally, Trump maintains a strong connection to some Georgia voters, and his campaign reinforces those ties with frequent requests for donations.

Zennie Hall of Tybee Island receives about a dozen texts a day seeking support for Trump. She has made 38 separate contributions to his campaign since April, totaling $361.21.

“I support him 100%. That’s it,” Hall said. “He’s the only one who can really get us back on the right track. I don’t think the other Republicans have a shot.”

Credit: Rebecca Wright for the Atlanta J

Credit: Rebecca Wright for the Atlanta J

Giuliani says he ‘does not contest’ he made false claims about election fraud

Rudy Giuliani said in a court filing this past week that he is not contesting accusations that he made false statements about two former Fulton County election workers who brought a defamation lawsuit against him.

While acting as an attorney for Donald Trump, Giuliani repeatedly accused election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss of voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost. State and federal investigators quickly determined the allegations were false.

During one state legislative hearing, Giuliani accused Moss of handing Freeman “USB ports like they were vials of heroin or cocaine.” In fact, Moss testified before a U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that what she handed her mother was “a ginger mint,” not a USB port.

Freeman and Moss endured harassment and death threats because of the allegations, and they filed a defamation lawsuit against Giuliani in December 2021.

In a signed statement attached to the court filing, Giuliani said, “The defendant Giuliani, for the purposes of this litigation only, does not contest that, to the extent the statements were statements of fact and otherwise actionable, such actionable statements were false.”

But the former New York City mayor maintained that the stipulation does not affect his argument that his statements “are constitutionally protected statements or opinion.” And he conceded, “solely for the purposes of this litigation ... that the statements carry meaning that is defamatory.”

Atlanta lawyer Peter Canfield, who specializes in First Amendment law, said Giuliani’s filing is not a concession “that he knew or should have known that it was false when he said it, or even now.”

Canfield said it appears Giuliani may be trying to avoid having the judge in the case toss out his defense as a sanction for his failure to turn over evidence to Freeman and Moss’ legal team.

Giuliani is potentially facing severe sanctions for failing to turn over electronic evidence in the defamation lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

Though Giuliani has turned over some evidence, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said they found through other means electronic communications that Giuliani never turned over.

In the court filing, Giuliani attorney Robert Costello argued that his client doesn’t have the emails and other documents in question. Costello said federal authorities in New York seized Giuliani’s electronic devices in a criminal investigation in 2021. Giuliani was not charged in that investigation.

Michael J. Gottlieb, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, said Giuliani’s stipulation “concedes what we have always known to be true — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss honorably performed their civic duties in the 2020 presidential election in full compliance with the law, and the allegations of election fraud he and former President Trump made against them have been false since day one,” Gottlieb said.

Georgia Medicaid contractor’s denial rate among highest in federal report

A federal report examining the performance of U.S. insurance contractors shows a firm serving hundreds of thousands of Georgia Medicaid patients denied care ordered by doctors in more than 1 out of every 3 cases.

That Georgia contractor, known to customers as Amerigroup, denied 34% of all requests for medical services issued by physicians, the second-highest rate of denial among the 115 managed care organizations, or MCOs, cited in the report using 2019 data.

Insurance companies usually classify a list of services that require their prior authorization, requiring patients and their doctors to seek approval first to determine whether an insurer agrees that the expense is necessary. The insurance companies maintain that they are the only check on unreasonably high charges by service providers and unnecessary orders by doctors. Doctors counter that insurance companies have gone too far in terms of denials that prevent important medical care.

The Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued the report, which examined denial rates by MCOs in 37 states. Its investigators determined the average denial rate for prior authorizations was 1 in 8 cases, which the report suggested was a high number.

Amerigroup in 2019 operated under the parent company Anthem, which has previously been known as Blue Cross and is now called Elevance. That year, it served about 380,000 Georgians on Medicaid, the government insurance program for poor children and some poor adults who are elderly, federally declared disabled, or meet certain work or activity requirements.

Last year, the state of Georgia fined Anthem $5 million for what it called a yearslong pattern of violations of policyholder’s rights. Months later, Anthem changed its name to Elevance.

Amerigroup was not the only Georgia MCO to exceed the average rate of denial. Wellcare of Georgia, operating under the parent company Centene, withheld authorization on 16.8% of doctors’ orders.

Both Anthem and Centene still operated Georgia Medicaid managed care organizations in the recent contract year, under the names Amerigroup and Peach State Health Plan. Combined, the two were paid $4.4 billion by the state for medical services in fiscal 2022.

Prior authorizations extend beyond surgery and other procedures. They also can apply to medications, even when a patient has used them for years as part of their treatment.

Georgia also drew the attention of investigators as one of 15 states that did not count the denials its contractors issued in order to see whether rates looked unusually high. Georgia was one of only two states that did not respond when asked whether it reviewed samples of the denials for appropriateness.

States are not required to do that, but the report’s authors recommended that they do. States are required to monitor appeals of denials, but many denials are never appealed.

Neither Elevance nor the Georgia Department of Community Health, which oversees Medicaid, responded to questions about the inspector general’s findings.

Activists denounce migrant deaths in U.S. detention, including Georgia facility

The recent deaths of migrants in U.S. custody — including eight at a Georgia detention center since 2017 — spurred a national day of protest.

In Atlanta, about three dozen demonstrators gathered this past week in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement field office.

People displayed signs bearing the names and photos of men who died in Georgia federal immigration detention centers, and they read letters from migrants now in detention.

“Georgia is the site of some of the most deadly detention centers in the country,” said Nat Villasana, an activist with the Shut Down FIPC Coalition, a group pushing for the rollback of immigrant detention in Georgia.

Villasana called attention to the case of Salvador Vargas, a migrant from Mexico who died in April from complications after a stroke. He was being held in one of the state’s largest immigrant facilities: the Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia.

Stewart has seen several deaths in recent years. Four detainees died of COVID-19, and two others who were in solitary confinement hanged themselves between 2017 and 2019. One died of pneumonia, while another succumbed to a heart infection and multiorgan failure.

According to federal data, 46 migrants have died in ICE custody across the U.S. since 2018.

“ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody,” ICE said in a news release.

Uche Onwa, a staffer with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, said the protesters were rallying to hold the government accountable.

“No matter the location, ICE detention centers are fundamentally unsafe and must be abolished,” he said.

Political expedience