A Fulton County judge ruled against the state ethics commission in its bid to get records from Democrat Stacey Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial campaign and groups it says may have illegally coordinated with the candidate’s bid for office.
The judge found the commission’s subpoenas overly broad. Lawyers for the campaign and the groups said they’d already provided thousands of documents to the commission and that the panel — which enforces state campaign finance laws — was seeking records that either didn’t exist or should have no bearing on its case.
The ruling late Thursday by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jane Barwick is no run-of-the-mill decision on what a defendant would be required to provide to investigators: Abrams is expected to seek a re-match with Gov. Brian Kemp in 2022, and her supporters say the commission is trying to smear her reputation before the election.
“This was always a political fishing expedition,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, a top Abrams aide and her 2018 campaign manager.
The commission may appeal the ruling, which greatly narrowed the scope of the documents the groups would have to produce, to the Georgia Court of Appeals.
“We’re considering a number of appellate options right now,” said David Emadi, the ethics commission’s executive secretary. “We don’t agree with the ruling.”
The commission is looking into whether Abrams’ campaign illegally coordinated its efforts with nonprofits supporting her bid for governor. Georgia law prohibits independent groups from coordinating with candidates.
Abrams ultimately lost the 2018 election to Kemp.
Subpoenas were sought by Emadi in one of his first actions in 2019 after taking the job with the panel, formally known as the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. Abrams’ camp has noted that Emadi was a Kemp donor in 2018.
The agency requested all correspondence between the campaign and a number of groups that registered and mobilized voters, many with a focus on energizing minorities.
Attorneys for the Abrams campaign said during a 2020 hearing that they had already turned over 4,000 documents showing checks, wire transfers, bank records and campaign transactions.
They said the ethics commission lacks evidence of wrongdoing, and now it’s trying to dig into personal emails and other documents unrelated to the allegations.
An attorney for the ethics commission said in court that he needed an explanation for spending by the New Georgia Project, a voter registration group that Abrams founded, and an affiliated organization, the New Georgia Project Action Fund.
The organizations hired canvassers, sought donations and supported Abrams in mass emails, but neither the groups nor the campaign reported those items in spending disclosures, Assistant Attorney General Christian Fuller said in court.
But those activities and emails don’t show direct communications that would justify an allegation of illegal campaign coordination, an attorney for the Abrams campaign said.
The commission is investigating whether New Georgia Project broke state law by spending on Abrams’ campaign but not disclosing it, and the Georgia Court of Appeals this month dismissed a motion to quash subpoenas seeking the group’s bank records.
The cases could continue into 2022, when Kemp and Abrams may be facing off in a 2018 rematch.
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