Georgia Ethics Committee executive director Holly LaBerge was fired Monday following a unanimous vote by the ethics commission. The vote came after a $10,000 fine levied on LaBerge last week by a Fulton County Superior Court judge for withholding documents pertaining to the case filed by Stacey Kalberman, the former ethics chair.
The vote was held amid little fanfare, as the commissioners engaged in no public discussion and Commission Chair Hillary Stringfellow had only to say that Laberge’s actions, “fundamentally conflict with the specific mission and purpose of this commission and therefore with her own duties and responsibilities as executive secretary.”
Jason Carter was quick to jump on the story as it developed, with a series of tweets starting with the one below.
.@NathanDeal‘s handpicked ethics chief fired today after hiding docs that would’ve put Gov. on witness stand https://t.co/fjhcObk5OU #gapol
— Jason Carter (@carter4governor) September 8, 2014
Hitting on Governor Deal’s ethics issues has been Carter’s most effective line of attack, and the continuing story regarding LaBerge and the texts allegedly sent to her by Deal’s staff threatening her to make ethics complaints against the Governor ‘go away’ have served to keep the angle fresh in the minds of the public. With LaBerge’s firing, surely the Deal campaign hopes the story fades away, but if I were to venture guess I’d say that the entire situation will be a prominent piece of the media blitz that will hit airwaves during the last two months of the campaign, (or longer if there is a runoff, a distinct possibility at this point).
First Lady Campaigns with Nunn
Michelle Obama was in Atlanta yesterday, (along with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan) to promote the Obama administration’s annual ‘back-to-school bus tour’, but more importantly, (to us anyway) to attend a fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate and fellow ‘Michelle’ Michelle Nunn.
The move seems odd considering Nunn’s insistence that she has few ties to the current White House regime, which is wildly unpopular in Georgia. See the Georgia Gang, featuring our own Phil Kent, break down what the First Lady’s trip down to Georgia means for Nunn and for the Senate race in general in the below clip.
