Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr on Wednesday denied an investigation that former Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-G.A.) had requested into the conduct of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during the 2020 presidential election.
Hours earlier, Loeffler had sent a letter to Carr asking him to probe whether Raffensperger used his position to push his personal political interests during last year’s election cycle.
She wanted the probe to uncover whether Raffensperger “put his political self-interest ahead of the people of Georgia in conducting elections” by never fixing problems from the June 6 primary, and not resolving double-voting issues. These problems, she said, has reduced trust and transparency.
Loeffler alleged that the secretary of state “politicized and minimized voters’ legitimate concerns about changes to Georgia’s elections which were related to the pandemic and legal settlements, failed to complete investigations and provide timely information, and engaged in political matters during an election.”
“This request is not about the outcome of an election, but about the loss of confidence in our elections and the importance of holding elected officials accountable for upholding the law and carrying out their constitutional duties,” Loeffler wrote.
She asked Carr to probe whether these actions constituted a conflict of interest in violation of the state’s Constitution and/or statutes.
“If voters don’t trust the electoral process and their elected officials, we risk sustained damage to voter participation in our state,” she wrote. “Voting rights are not a partisan issue, and the loss of electoral confidence disenfranchises voters of any political affiliation.”
Loeffler said that Secretary Raffensperger made “unprecedented changes” to the state’s elections last year amid the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.
These changes included the mass mailing of unsolicited absentee ballot requests, entering into a consent decree without the legislature’s awareness, accepting millions in outside money from an organisation linked to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and failing to resolve hundreds of open investigations from the primary and general elections.
Carr however declined the request for a probe, saying he represents Raffensperger.
“Under the Georgia Constitution, the Department of Law is the lawyer for the executive branch of government—which includes the Secretary of State’s Office. As such, we cannot investigate our own client on these particular matters,” Carr’s office said in a statement.
In a strong rebuke, the secretary of state called the allegations “laughable.”
“Kelly Loeffler’s failure to convince anyone she actually was a Trump supporter is the reason Georgia doesn’t have a Republican Senator or the United States a Republican Senate,” Raffensperger said in a statement.
Loeffler lost her seat in a January runoff election against Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).
She is now ramping up the rhetoric around the key role of her new get-out-the-vote drive—called Greater Georgia—to counter Fair Fight, the voter participation initiative founded by former Democratic congressional representative Stacey Abrams.
Raffensperger and AG Carr didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.
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