Today’s newsletter highlights include:
- Jewish leaders sign letter backing U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
- Runoff elections for local offices.
- President Joe Biden pardons his son.
The producer of a documentary that falsely accused a metro Atlanta man of committing election fraud during the 2020 election has issued an apology saying his depiction was based on “inaccurate information.”
The statement by right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza came months after Salem Media Group issued a similar apology to Mark Andrews about “2000 Mules,” the 2022 film that purported to expose illegal ballot harvesting in Georgia and other swing states.
“I make this apology not under the terms of a settlement agreement or other duress, but because it is the right thing to do, given what we have now learned,” D’Souza wrote on his website over the weekend.
The film showed Andrews — face blurred — depositing five ballots in a drop box before the 2020 presidential election. D’Souza, the film’s narrator, falsely claimed viewers were seeing “a crime” and fraudulent votes.
Credit: Ali Berzon/The New York Times
Credit: Ali Berzon/The New York Times
But a 2022 investigation by the Georgia secretary of state’s office found the ballots were not fraudulent. Andrews was delivering ballots for himself and members of his family, which is not illegal. Investigators also debunked other Georgia claims made in the film.
Andrews filed a still-pending defamation lawsuit against Salem and the film’s producers in 2022 saying he did nothing wrong.
The allegations in “2000 Mules,” which was watched by more than a million people in the first weeks after it was released, are among several claims hailed by election deniers as proof of fraud but didn’t hold up under scrutiny.
That includes allegations of widespread fraud captured on video at State Farm Arena, counterfeit ballots and other claims.
D’Souza pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws in 2014. President Donald Trump pardoned him in 2018.
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Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
GOOD MORNING! Georgia’s legislative session starts in 42 days. We hope you enjoyed the Thanksgiving break. Here are some things you might have missed over the long holiday weekend:
- Friends and family of former Labor Commissioner Bruce Thompson, who died last week, gathered Saturday in his hometown of Cartersville to celebrate his legacy, Greg Bluestein writes.
- Republican Tracy Wheeler is challenging her narrow loss for the state House of Representatives in court. Wheeler lost to Democratic state Rep. Mack Jackson by just 48 votes. Wheeler says ineligible voters cast ballots in the newly redrawn district, the AJC’s Mark Niesse reports.
- Vivek Ramaswamy, who is co-leading the Department of Government Efficiency — a nongovernmental agency — criticized the Biden administration’s decision to loan electric automaker Rivian nearly $6 billion to build a plant in Georgia, the AJC’s Caleb Groves writes.
- Georgia had the 10th highest rate of abortions in the country in 2022, according to new federal data released last week as reported by the AJC’s Maya T. Prabhu.
- Georgia farmers struggling to recover from Hurricane Helene could be hurt by President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs, Caleb Groves reports.
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Credit: Ben Hendren for the AJC
Credit: Ben Hendren for the AJC
OSSOFF SUPPORT. Not everyone is mad at Jon Ossoff.
The first-term U.S. senator from Georgia angered many in the state’s Jewish community last month when he voted to advance two resolutions that would have blocked the sale of some types of ammunition to Israel amid its war with Hamas. Those votes failed.
Both Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s other Democratic U.S. senator, were among the 19 senators who supported the resolutions. (Warnock, but not Ossoff, also voted in favor of a third proposal in the series.) But Ossoff, who is Jewish, has been receiving the brunt of the criticism, as he’s running for reelection in 2026 and figures to be a top target of Republicans.
However, a group of more than 100 people representing the Atlanta Jewish community signed a letter recently thanking both Ossoff and Warnock for their votes. The letter noted both have previously voted for billions of dollars in U.S. aid for Israel and have “repeatedly stood by Israel in its right to defend itself.”
“This was not a vote to delay or cut aid to Israel and did not pertain to U.S. support for Israel’s defensive capabilities,” the letter said. “We are disappointed by those that seek to cast this vote as anything but a message of concern for the future of Israel, and for regional stability, security and peace.”
The letter was signed by a “broad swath of our Metro Atlanta Jewish Community — including clergy, Jewish professionals, board members, and lay leaders in synagogues, camps, nonprofit organizations and beyond.”
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Credit: Courtesy photos
Credit: Courtesy photos
NO REST FOR THE WEARY. Believe it or not, it’s still election season for many in Georgia. That’s because Georgia law requires a runoff if no candidate receives a majority of the votes in the general election.
On Tuesday, voters will decide the fate of 18 local elections across the state. Our AJC colleague Mark Niesse has a rundown of the races on the ballot. The headliner is an Atlanta City Council seat between Eshé Collins, a school board member, and Nicole Evans Jones, an educator and businesswoman.
Evans Jones received 28,000 more votes than Collins on Election Day in November. But turnout is expected to fall significantly for the runoff, making the race even harder to predict.
Both candidates are touting their backgrounds in education. But Collins believes she has the advantage because of her stint on Atlanta’s school board, the AJC’s Riley Bunch reports.
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Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC
SCHOOL LIST. A new law in Georgia pledges to give parents up to $6,500 to help pay to send their children to private schools. But the law only applies to students whose public schools are in the bottom 25% of test scores in the state.
We now know which schools those are.
Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration posted a list of qualifying schools over the long holiday weekend. There are 513 of them across the state.
Districts with the most schools eligible:
- DeKalb County: 45 schools
- Richmond County: 42 schools
- Atlanta Public Schools: 31 schools
- Muscogee County: 26 schools
- Henry County: 23 schools
Click here for the full list. And here’s a refresher of the rules for the program, including who is eligible, per the AJC’s Martha Dalton.
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Credit: Courtesy photos
Credit: Courtesy photos
HE’S BACK. Floyd Griffin has many titles: Army colonel, college football coach, state senator, mayor, university trustee.
Now he’s got another one to add to the list: Georgia state representative.
Griffin won a close race over Republican state Rep. Ken Vance in the newly redrawn House District 149. He’ll return to the state Capitol in January as a lawmaker for the first time since the mid 1990s, when he served two terms in the state Senate.
Throughout his career, Griffin has been used to going first. Many times in the military he found himself to be the first Black person serving in his role. He was the first African American to represent a majority white district in the Georgia Senate. And in 2002, he was elected the first Black mayor of Milledgeville.
But his political career, which has spanned three decades, has also been marked by defeat. Voters ousted him from the state Senate after two terms. And he lasted only one term as mayor. Since then, he’s lost multiple other races, including two statewide campaigns for lieutenant governor and secretary of state.
“It’s tough being the first Black person in any major position of responsibility,” he said. “Every time I have won an election to include the one that I just won, I always won against an incumbent. And a white incumbent.”
This most recent election was different because a judge ordered the district to be redrawn to make it majority Black. Griffin said it’s the first election he’s ever had where he knew he could win.
Griffin says he plans to introduce some legislation, but he’s not ready to announce it just yet. He wants to focus on education — particularly higher education — along with voting and abortion rights.
“I don’t know how long I’m going to stay. I’m going to stay as long as I feel I can serve,” the 80-year-old Griffin said. “But at the same time, I am going to be looking for that person that should replace me.”
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Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP
Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP
HUNTER PARDONED. President Joe Biden announced Sunday night that he would pardon his son Hunter Biden, who was scheduled to be sentenced this month on federal gun and tax evasion charges.
In a statement announcing the pardon, Biden said his son had been prosecuted on charges that rarely result in trial let alone felony convictions for others with less-famous names.
“It is clear that Hunter was treated differently,” the president said. “The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.”
NBC News was the first to report that Biden planned to pardon his son, an announcement that comes in the final weeks of his presidency. The move is a reversal for a president who has repeatedly said he would not intervene on his son’s behalf.
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Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden begins a three-day trip in Luanda, Angola.
- The U.S. Senate returns from the holiday break and takes up more confirmations.
- The House returns Tuesday.
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Credit: Ben Curtis/AP
Credit: Ben Curtis/AP
PRESIDENT GLOBETROTTER. President Joe Biden’s announcement he would pardon his son, Hunter Biden, was timed to drop while he was en route to Luanda, Angola, where he will become the first U.S. leader to visit sub-Saharan Africa in about a decade.
The three-day trip is the fulfillment of a promise Biden made to African leaders. He was originally scheduled to travel there in October but postponed the trip to stay in Washington to respond to the devastation after hurricanes Helene and Milton.
CNN reports that Biden’s trip comes as the U.S. attempts to counter the growing influence of Russia and China in the region. He also plans to highlight U.S. investment in an 800-mile railway project that links mineral mining in the interior of the continent to ports on Angola’s coast.
The last president to touch this part of the world was Barack Obama, who visited Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015. Biden is the first-ever sitting U.S. president to come to Angola.
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Credit: Mike Stewart/AP
Credit: Mike Stewart/AP
LISTEN UP. Today on “Politically Georgia,” state Rep. Esther Panitch, D-Sandy Springs, and state Rep. Ruwa Romman, D-Duluth, talk about U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s recent votes on Israel. They’ll also discuss the upcoming legislative session and how Georgia Democrats are regrouping after the election.
Be sure to download the AJC’s Politically Georgia podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are uploaded by noon each day, just in time to have lunch with us. You can also listen live at 10 a.m. EDT on 90.1 FM WABE. Have a question for the show? Give us a call at 770-810-5297.
On Wednesday’s show, the hosts answered questions from the listener mailbag and producer Natalie Mendenhall’s interviewed Emory University professor Drew Westen about how to keep things civil with family and friends while discussing politics this holiday season.
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
SHOUTOUTS. Belated birthdays:
- Jake Orvis, campaign advisor to U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta (was Saturday).
- State Rep. Gary Richardson, R-Evans (was Sunday).
Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that! Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.
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AS ALWAYS, send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.
