Two voting advocacy groups founded by unsuccessful Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have been hit with historic charges by the Georgia Ethics Commission for violating campaign finance laws in supporting Abram’s 2018 campaign. He was sentenced to a fine.
“Today, the State Ethics Commission entered into a consent agreement with the New Georgia Project and the New Georgia Project Activities Fund totaling $300,000,” the Georgia Ethics Commission announced in a statement Wednesday. “While this is certainly the largest fine ever imposed in the history of the Georgia Ethics Commission, it is also the largest ethics fine ever imposed by a state ethics commission in the country in connection with an election and campaign finance case. It seems to belong to
Abrams founded the New Georgia Project in 2013 as part of an effort to register more minority voters and young voters. The organization was established as a charity that could accept tax-deductible donations, and the New Georgia Project Action Fund served as the organization’s fundraising arm.
According to the commission’s consent order, the organizations admitted that they failed to disclose about $4.2 million in donations and about $3.2 million in expenditures during Abram’s 2018 campaign. The groups faced a total of 16 violations, including failing to register as political committees and failing to disclose millions of dollars in political contributions.
Stacey Abrams says Trump’s re-election was not a ‘tectonic shift’ or ‘landslide’
Stacey Abrams (Elijah Nouverge/Getty Images/File)
The groups are accused of similar activity in 2019, when they reportedly failed to disclose $646,000 in donations and $174,000 in donations while claiming ballot initiatives. It is being
Stacey Abrams accuses CNN host of ‘repeated defamation’ for questioning 2018 election results
“This is the largest and most significant example of an organization illegally influencing a statewide election in Georgia that we have uncovered to date, and this is a threat to the public and potential bad actors.” We believe this sends a clear message to both parties that we will hold them accountable,” the Ethics Commission continued in a statement on Wednesday.
Stacey Abrams praises ‘The View’ for not conceding in election, defends 2018 Georgia race as ‘winning’
Abrams resigned from the group in 2017, and Sen. Raphael Warnock took the helm as CEO of the New Georgia Project from 2017 to 2019, the Associated Press reported. Warnock was elected to the U.S. Senate from Georgia in 2020.
Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is also the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, will speak from the pulpit. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images/File)
A spokesperson for Warnock’s Senate office told The Associated Press that Warnock is a “long-time voting rights advocate” and was not aware of any campaign violations. The spokesperson added that “compliance decisions were not part of that work.” Fox Digital also contacted Warnock’s office for additional comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Abrams ran for Georgia governor in 2018 and 2022, losing to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in both elections. Abrams gained national attention after the 2018 election when she refused to concede to Republicans despite losing by 60,000 votes.
Stacey Abrams on not admitting loss in Georgia: ‘Legitimate question’ system should be allowed
During the 2018 race, she promoted the New Georgia Project on her X account, then called Twitter.
“When Ms. Abrams sees a problem, she doesn’t wait for someone else to step up and take action. So when she saw that 800,000 people of color in Georgia were not registered to vote, Abrams immediately set out to solve the problem and founded The New GA Project,” she tweeted.
In a comment to Fox News Digital, the New Georgia Project said it wanted to ensure the group could “fully dedicate its time and attention to efforts to civically engage and enroll Black, brown, and Black women. I’m glad we can finally put this issue behind us.” Young voters in Georgia. ”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“While we remain disappointed that a federal court’s ruling regarding the constitutionality of Georgia’s government transparency and campaign finance laws was overturned on entirely procedural grounds, we accept this outcome and continue to “We are eager to turn the page on the work that has taken place before,” the group continued.
Source link
