The Georgia State Ethics commission slapped a record $300,00 fine on a nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams Wednesday for failing to disclose millions of dollars the entity spent to aid her failed 2018 gubernatorial campaign.
Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock ran the New Georgia Project, an allegedly nonpartisan voting advocacy nonprofit founded by Abrams, during the time the entity illegally aided Abrams’ 2018 campaign until his run for Senate in 2020, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. The nonprofit and the New Georgia Project Action Fund, a closely aligned nonprofit, spent a combined $3.2 million registering voters and attempting to persuade thousands of Georgians to support Abrams and other Democratic candidates on the ballot during the 2018 campaign cycle, according to the state ethics commission.
Both entities engaged in overtly partisan activities without registering as an independent political action committee and failed to file disclosure reports, a clear violation of state law, according to the state ethics commission’s consent order.
Georgia Republican Rep. Buddy Carter told the Daily Caller News Foundation the record fine levied against the nonprofits by the state ethics commission does not go far enough and that the non-profit status of both nonprofits should be rescinded.
“Non-profit status for New Georgia Project and its related Action Fund should be revoked, and everyone responsible for this blatant violation of federal law must be held accountable,” Carter told the DCNF. “It is disappointing that failed-candidate Stacey Abrams, who repeatedly spouted lies about her election being stolen, has yet again made a mockery of our free and fair system of elections. Georgians deserve better.”
Stacey Abrams is a fraud who used activists in the mainstream media to try to pull the wool over Georgians’ eyes. It didn’t work. She was embarrassed two cycles in a row and now embarrassed again that her illegal grift is being exposed.
Today’s news shows that the people of… https://t.co/DzBVFgiz2f
— Burt Jones (@burtjonesforga) January 15, 2025
Both nonprofits admitted to every allegation the state ethics commission had levied against them — amounting to more than 15 violations of state campaign finance laws in total — after years of denying the Abrams-linked entities had engaged in illegal activities to support her campaign, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
“They’re now admitting everything we said was true,” David Emadi, the executive director of the state ethics commission, told the New York Times last week.
The voting advocacy nonprofits also admitted to engaging in illegal campaign finance activities in 2019 by engaging in partisan activities in support of a referendum on extending public transportation, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
Abrams founded the New Georgia Project in 2013 to register youth and nonwhite voters in Georgia to vote.
The nonprofit describes itself as a “nonpartisan civic engagement organization” and is registered as a 501(c)(3), requiring the entity to refrain from endorsing political candidates or engaging in partisan activity to maintain its tax-exempt status.
The ethics commission did not personally charge Abrams nor Warnock.
“Stacey hasn’t been involved in the organization’s work since she departed in 2017,” a spokesperson for Abrams told the Times.
A spokesperson for Abrams and Warnock did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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