Abrams campaign asks Georgia judge to deny request for more documents

Stacey Abrams’ campaign on Wednesday asked a judge to deny the Georgia ethics commission’s demand for more documents linked to the Democrat’s 2018 race for governor, saying it had already sufficiently complied with the panel’s request.

It said the commission was seeking documents from the campaign of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s top rival that are unrelated to campaign finance issues — which are within the panel’s jurisdiction. And it said that it has no documents showing illegal coordination between the campaign and third-party groups that backed her unsuccessful bid for governor.

The commission said in a Fulton County Superior Court filing earlier this month that it requested thousands of documents as part of its probe into possible coordination between Abrams and so-called independent groups. Such groups spent millions of dollars backing Abrams, but, by law, they are not allowed to coordinate directly with a campaign.

The Abrams campaign said it handed over thousands of documents to the commission’s investigators, and that the judge didn’t have jurisdiction to rule in such a preliminary investigation with the commission still not having shown there is evidence a violation occurred.

Read more: https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/abrams-campaign-asks-georgia-judge-deny-request-for-more-documents/sMuBFaFhTi6bfSqiWjkeGL/