https://washingtonsun.com/georgia Georgia en-US Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:21:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/jon-ossoff-mike-collins-former-staffer-kkk-nazi-imagery Jackie Llanos He said Rep. Mike Collins’ judgement in hiring was “unacceptable and disqualifying.” Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:21:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/jon-ossoff-mike-collins-former-staffer-kkk-nazi-imagery Sen. Jon Ossoff assailed his Republican rival, Rep. Mike Collins, on Thursday following a report that the congressman’s office had formerly employed a staffer with a history of racist posts online, including Nazi and KKK imagery.

Ossoff, a Democrat running for reelection in Georgia against the embattled Collins, made the comments in a press conference initially meant to focus on an ongoing probe into Collins’ use of taxpayer dollars being conducted by the House Ethics Committee.

That was before The Washington Post published a bombshell report Thursday morning detailing a number of posts made by Preston Parra, a former intern for Collins and a contractor for his leadership PAC. He reportedly posted on X a picture of himself wearing a Klu Klux Klan robe, another of a swastika made up of the word “twink,” and used the phrase “white power” several times.

Ossoff said that hiring Parra was evidence of Collins’ ties to white nationalism and neo-Nazi ideology. He also cited reports about the House member’s son-in-law, who is a pro-white nationalist social media influencer, and his then-chief of staff using his position to help a jailed Holocaust denier.

“This morning's news should shock not just the entire state of Georgia but the entire country,” Ossoff said. “Yet more evidence of a sitting congressman's extensive ties to white nationalism and neo-Nazi ideology. This time, it's swastikas and the costume of the Ku Klux Klan, unacceptable and disqualifying.”

“It is the year 2026 in the state of Georgia, it's not 1935, it's not 1958,” Ossoff added.

In response to Parra’s posts, a Collins spokesperson tried to connect Ossoff to left-wing commentator Hasan Piker. Ossoff is one of the Democrats who has condemned Piker for saying American Jews support for Israel could incite violence.

“Preston Parra has no affiliation with Mike Collins’ office or campaign,” Collins spokesperson Meyer Siegfried said in a statement. “The posts are vile, completely unhinged, and Mike Collins unequivocally condemns them.”

Overhaul PAC paid Parra $7,700 for fundraising consulting in May 2025, according to Federal Election Commission records. In an interview with the Post, Parra said he considered himself a provocateur and not a white supremacist.

Parra has continued to double down on his rhetoric on social media, referring to a reporter with a racial slur.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/atlanta-lashes-out-over-dncs-2028-convention-snub Angie Orellana Hernandez The city’s mayor launched a new round of criticism toward embattled DNC Chair Ken Martin. Thu, 20 Aug 2026 20:09:38 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/atlanta-lashes-out-over-dncs-2028-convention-snub Local leaders in Atlanta heavily criticized the Democratic National Committee on Thursday for rejecting the city’s bid to host the 2028 convention, accusing the national party of “abandoning” both the South and Black voters writ large.

In a letter obtained by multiple outlets, Andre Dickens, the mayor of Atlanta, blasted the DNC and its embattled chair, Ken Martin, for skipping over Atlanta after the committee whittled its list of finalists down to three cities: Boston, Denver and Philadelphia. Atlanta has not hosted a convention in nearly four decades.

Dickens argued that leaving out Atlanta signals the DNC and Martin are overlooking how vital the South is to the Democratic base. It is the latest criticism of Martin, who has faced pressure to step down over the party’s financial problems and internal clashes.

“They are afraid to leave their comfort zone and blind to the fact that the South is the answer,” Dickens said. “They are abandoning Atlanta, abandoning the South, and once again abandoning Black voters.”

Dickens claimed that while the Republican National Committee has chosen the South for its conventions — the most recent examples being a pared-down 2020 convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a 2012 gathering in Florida — the Democratic Party has instead “chosen the same region over and over again.”

“This isn’t by accident,” Dickens said. “It’s an intentional choice.”

He did not reference the 2012 Democratic convention, which was also held in Charlotte.

Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman said the Democrats cannot achieve a “path to power without the South.”

“Party people keep saying black voters and black women are the base of the party yet don't bother to invest in the region with the largest concentration of black voters,” Romman, a Democrat, wrote in a post on X.

Atlanta launched a vigorous campaign to woo the DNC after losing the 2024 convention to Chicago. Atlanta City Council members approved up to $36 million earlier in August to host the event and had secured a contract with the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority for transportation.

Dickens spokesperson Michael Smith told The Atlanta-Journal Constitution that it was “unfortunate” to learn about the DNC’s decision through news reports and that the mayor’s office would have “more to say on this in the future.”

Martin said in a statement that the three finalists presented “incredibly strong bids to host the convention.”

The DNC did not elaborate Thursday on why it cut Atlanta and Chicago from the running. It did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Dickens’ letter or Smith’s claims.

Martin wrote on X that each city “presented strong bids to host an inspiring celebration of our party’s future nominee and a critical step on our path to retaking the White House.”

Site visits to all five locations were conducted in April and May. Factors that played into the decision-making process included a city’s operational and logistical capacity, shared Democratic values and ability to respond to the challenges that arise from hosting the convention, according to a DNC official.

The DNC chose South Carolina as the first state in the party’s 2028 presidential primary process — a move that party strategists and leaders said would challenge candidates to earn the votes of Black and Latino constituents early on in the process. The party is also providing an additional $5,000 per month to Republican-controlled states, including nine Southern states, to support Democratic candidates.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/trump-mike-collins-georgia-senate-run Ben T.N. Mause The president’s approval rating is underwater — could he bring down their candidate in one of the country’s most significant races? Fri, 24 Jul 2026 20:35:20 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/trump-mike-collins-georgia-senate-run Republicans are wary that a visible President Donald Trump in Georgia could do more harm than good as they try to win back Sen. Jon Ossoff’s seat.

Ossoff was widely seen as one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection this year — particularly after Trump won the state in 2024. But with Mike Collins’ campaign already in a rut, they’re worried Trump's underwater approval rating in the state could further sink his chances.

“We're already seeing Ossoff at every turn trying to tie Collins to Trump,” a Republican operative, who requested anonymity due to his role on an active campaign, said. The operative added that when Trump’s approval rating sits below 40%, as it does now, “there's headwinds there.”

Collins’ general election campaign has struggled with scandal. One longtime staffer was fired after Collins' campaign account mocked a woman by referencing the fact that she said she was a victim of sexual assault; Collins called the post “despicable and unauthorized.” Another official aide reportedly said in a group chat that he tried to leverage his position to get a Holocaust denier out of prison. And CNN reported that Collins’ son-in-law has a history of antisemitic statements and white nationalist ties.

A Fox News poll released on July 1 showed Ossoff with 56% support from registered voters, while Collins trailed with 43%. An AARP poll released on Thursday showed Ossoff with a 9 percentage point advantage.

Some Georgia Republicans feel that if Trump becomes more involved, Collins' chances will further erode.

“Collins is gonna get smashed,” Eamon Keegan, a Republican pollster in Georgia, said.

But, Keegan added, Trump's dismal approval ratings would only exacerbate the issue — particularly if the president is unable to resolve the ongoing war in Iran, which continues to drag down Republicans' election prospects.

“One-hundred percent,” said another operative when asked if he believed that Trump could hinder Republican efforts in Georgia.

Trump visited Georgia on Wednesday for an official White House event in Marietta, an Atlanta suburb. Several state and federal officials joined him, including Kelly Loeffler, a former Georgia senator and head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Billed as an official event about Trump savings accounts, much of his speech was about politics, including Collins.

Collins, however, didn't attend. He posted a video to X before the event, saying he needed to be in Washington for House votes, and he knew “the president and the great leaders of Georgia could hold the line today until I get back home.”

During his speech, Trump gave an extended shout-out to Collins.

“Maybe the most important man in this room right now is not here. His name is Mike Collins, and he’s going to beat Pee-wee Herman,” Trump said, referring to Ossoff.

“I said, ‘Mike, I’m sort of here because of you,’” Trump added. “I said, ‘Mike, if you’re here I’m going to be extremely upset with you.’ Because he has to vote.”

Sam Densmore, deputy communications director for Collins’ campaign, disputed in a statement that Collins’ campaign is in tenuous territory.

“[Collins] is going to win this race because he has the business background, bipartisan record of results and positive vision to make life more affordable, safer, and better off for every person in this state, while Jon Ossoff has never had a real job, has gotten nothing accomplished and has a radical voting record,” Densmore said.

The RNC and White House also disputed that Trump could hinder Collins.

“Democrats can spin all the fake narratives they want, but Georgia is President Trump country, and Jon Ossoff’s days in the Senate are numbered,” RNC spokesperson Emma Hall told NOTUS in a statement that targeted Ossoff’s voting record in the Senate.

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales called the president “the Republicans’ best messenger and motivator” to contrast his agenda with congressional Democrats’.

Trump’s focus on the Georgia Senate race was welcome to Democrats and the Ossoff campaign.

“If they could bring back Trump every week, we’d love it,” David Brand, a Georgia Democratic operative supporting the Ossoff campaign, told NOTUS.

The Ossoff campaign has sought to amplify Collins’ relationship with Trump, with ads that feature Trump using Collins’ name at rallies and events over the years. Collins has aligned himself closely with Trump during his time in the House.

“We welcome anything that brings Mike Collins out of hiding and forces him to address his latest scandal, including visits from an increasingly unpopular president who has driven up costs and cut access to health care with the help of his puppet, MAGA loyalist Mike Collins,” Valeria Rivadeneira-Crandell, an Ossoff campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.

The counterargument among Republicans is that Trump’s knack for drawing low-propensity voters to the polls could provide a needed boost to Collins’ chances.

The first Republican operative also said that Collins could benefit from the president’s ability to stoke the MAGA voting base. Trump carried a significant advantage with low-propensity Republican voters in Georgia in 2024, particularly in rural areas. That advantage is harder to calculate compared to his poll numbers before Election Day, but it paid dividends in battleground states for him and his party in 2024.

While he is not on the ballot in 2026, operatives hope his visible support for Collins in the state could still bolster turnout.

“But Collins is going to wear the negative of it as well,” the first Republican operative said.

During the Marietta event, the president avoided the topic that makes Georgia operatives sweat most: complaints about election integrity. Just last week, the president made a prime-time address on the topic — a speech that Georgia Republican operatives were relieved didn’t specifically mention their state — while his dedication to passing the SAVE America Act, a voter-ID bill, has derailed congressional Republicans’ agenda this year.

Georgia has frequently been at the epicenter of Trump’s attacks on elections. After former President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state in 2020, Trump demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger find him additional votes to flip the outcome.

“Those issues are definitely net negatives for Republicans in the state,” the first Republican operative said. “A general election electorate doesn’t have much patience for that.”

Other Georgia Republicans feel it shouldn't be overanalyzed. He's the president, his supporters are incredibly loyal, and his words and presence have wooed middle of the road people before, they argue. One Republican member of the Georgia congressional delegation said as much — with an essential caveat.

“If he stays on message,” the Republican member said, then asked of the Marietta speech: “Did he?”
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/campaigns/mike-collins-derek-dooley-republicans-georgia-runoff-senate-jon-ossoff-2026-primary-election Christa Dutton The race is a critical opportunity for Republicans to flip a seat. Wed, 20 May 2026 03:27:53 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/campaigns/mike-collins-derek-dooley-republicans-georgia-runoff-senate-jon-ossoff-2026-primary-election Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley are projected to advance to a runoff in Georgia’s Republican contest to choose who will face Sen. Jon Ossoff in a key bellwether Senate race.

Georgia’s Senate race is one of a handful of competitive races in the country this year, and the contest is expected to be one of the most expensive. It’s a critical opportunity for Republicans to flip a seat, yet the party does not yet have a consensus on its candidate.

President Donald Trump stayed neutral during the primary, but Dooley, a newcomer to politics, landed the backing of Georgia’s popular governor, Brian Kemp. The governor declined to make a run of his own, and he strongly pushed for Dooley, frustrating the Trump political operation. In recent weeks, Kemp joined Dooley at campaign stops and helped him fundraise — a test of his strength as a political kingmaker.

“Kemp is not only stumping for him actively, but has raised a lot of money for him, and I think has given him the ability to get on network television, as well as other outlets and sources,” said Don Bolia, a lobbyist and former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party. “That's really putting him at a competitive advantage to get his name out there and develop some identification within Republican voters.”

Collins, who led Tuesday’s results with roughly 40% of the vote compared to Dooley’s 30%, has campaigned steadily on his Trump-aligned record and hard-line immigration policy. He often talked about writing the Laken Riley Act, which mandates the federal detention of unauthorized immigrants who are arrested, charged with, or convicted of certain crimes.

The House Ethics Committee is reviewing Collins' use of government funds, including allegations that he used congressional funds to pay his former chief of staff for campaign work and pay the former chief’s girlfriend for work she did not do.

Collins has strong name recognition in the state, especially among rural voters and those who remember his father, Mac Collins, who also served in Congress. Dooley has made a case for himself among voters attracted to political outsiders.

“You've got a group of voters that want somebody that's had political experience, and that's fine,” said Mary Clarice Hathaway, chair of the Cobb County GOP, which is staying neutral in the primary. “But I think you also have a group of voters that still, in some ways, feel disenfranchised, and they still like the idea of a political outsider.”

The Republican who survives the primary will face a tough contest against Ossoff, a rising star in the Democratic Party who has accumulated a massive war chest and already won statewide once. His campaign had $32.5 million cash on hand at the end of April, according to his pre-primary FEC report. Collins and Dooley both had about $1.6 million.

Georgia is considered a must-win for both Republicans and Democrats in determining which party will control the Senate. Cook Political Report moved the race in Democrats’ favor in April, changing its rating from “Toss Up” to “Lean Democrat.”

The runoff is scheduled for June 16.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/congress/data-center-congress-investments-election-controversy-moratorium-stock-trades Em Luetkemeyer Some voters hate data centers. Some places want to ban them. Some candidates and lawmakers are funding them. Mon, 20 Apr 2026 22:21:50 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/congress/data-center-congress-investments-election-controversy-moratorium-stock-trades Some elected officials and candidates for office have financial ties to data centers, an investment that’s quickly becoming a political liability as controversy grows around the facilities popping up across America.

Billions of dollars are pouring into the development of data centers, which require loads of electricity and water to operate, and demand is only growing with more artificial intelligence use. Some politicians support the development, saying it helps the U.S. keep up with international competitors and boost job and economic growth. Some condemn it, citing high resource demands that can spike utility rates for locals.

Some politicians, though, are financially tied to data center development.

Rep. Gil Cisneros, a California Democrat, reported buying stock in a data center supplier called Credo Technology in January and October. This year, Cisneros also reported trading stock in Oracle, a company investing billions into data centers.

Cisneros’ office did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment. But Cisneros is not alone in Congress when it comes to making those kinds of trades.

Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania bought stock last year in that same data center supplier — a stock that soon after would jump in value — while encouraging data center construction in his district, Politico reported.

Bresnahan has called for a congressional stock-trading ban but still regularly reports stock trades. He’s also tried to strike a balance in the past with his messaging about data centers, saying their development can help economic growth but shouldn’t come at the expense of local residents. An aide with his office told NOTUS he doesn’t trade his own stocks.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called Bresnahan “the poster-child of Washington corruption by playing the stock market while using his office to hurt the community he’s supposed to represent” after the report of his stock trading came out.

“Democrats have been sort of in a weird place of balancing interest in the innovation that tech can bring to society with a lot of the concerns that people have about the physical infrastructure of AI and the way AI is being deployed,” Johanna Fornberg, senior research analyst at Greenpeace, told NOTUS.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, reported about a dozen stock trades, whose total value is between $84,000 and $385,000, for large data center companies this year, including Oracle, Equinix, Digital Realty Trust and American Tower Corp. These investments belong to Khanna’s family members, not Khanna personally. Simultaneously, Khanna has been striking a balance when it comes to messaging around data centers.

“I am not an AI accelerationist. I am not an AI doomer. I am an AI democratist,” Khanna wrote in a Fox News op-ed in February, elaborating on how data centers should provide for communities rather than strain them — but he doesn’t go as far as colleagues to his left who want bans on new data center development.

“I have spoken out against data centers being extractive. I am for strong regulation, environmental protections, community impact studies and ensuring tech companies pay for all electricity and water use and provide local communities with compute power,” Khanna told NOTUS in a statement.

In two races for governor — one in Oklahoma, one in Georgia — Republican candidates are under scrutiny over alleged investment in data centers.

Chip Keating, a former Oklahoma secretary of public safety who is running for governor, has advocated during his campaign for keeping data centers far away from neighborhoods.

Keating owns a percentage of VTX Communications, an internet and phone company, according to Federal Communications Commission documents. A notice from March on the Webb County Appraisal District’s website indicates that VTX Communications owns a property in Laredo, Texas, near the Mexican border — a property that several groups who track developments classify as a data center.

Inflect, a data center research platform, says on its website that the data center at that property is “robust.” Data Center Map, another research website, also classifies the property as a data center and includes an option to request a quote for services in the facility. Data Center Journal refers to the property as the “Laredo VTX Data Center.”

VTX Communications owns another property in Brownsville, Texas, according to the Cameron County Appraisal District’s website. FiberLight, a data center marketplace, lists both properties in Laredo and Brownsville as data centers — “VTX Laredo” and “VTX Brownsville.”

“There’s not a data center. It doesn’t exist,” Keating told NOTUS.

“This is a telecommunications business, so obviously someone has spun up something that is completely untrue,” he continued.

He said his opponents “have tried to draw this up” and accuse him of being in the hyperscaling data business — a way to refer to large companies that build lots of data centers for AI use. “That’s furthest from the truth. I’ve never been in that business and nor will I ever be in that business,” he said.

“I’m a firm believer in local control, but we’re going to have to put guardrails in place,” Keating said of data center regulation, adding that should he win, groundwater, aquifers and power resources would not be abused.

Data centers, and those who support them, can be unpopular with the public. Voters in a St. Louis suburb ousted half of their City Council last week over its approval of a $6 billion data center project. Lawmakers in Maine passed the nation’s first statewide ban on large data centers last week that would institute a moratorium on new data centers for 18 months if signed by Gov. Janet Mills.

A Washington Post poll published last week found only 35% of voters in Virginia, a hot bed of data center construction, would support new construction of data centers in their area. A Politico poll conducted in January found nearly half of Americans expect data centers to be a campaign issue where they live within the next five years, though the majority did support some kind of data center development in the United States.

This backlash is translating into some pushback by state-level elected officials in ruby-red Oklahoma and across the country, despite the Trump administration and congressional lawmakers’ ties to the tech industry. Nationwide, 20 data center projects, and an estimated $98 billion in potential investment, were blocked or delayed due to local opposition during a three-month period in 2025, according to research firm Data Center Watch.

Mitch Jones, the deputy director at Food and Water Action, a political lobbying group, told NOTUS that investment in data centers may open candidates “to a line of attack” across the political spectrum. Jones said there’s a “very strong contingent” on the MAGA right who opposes data centers, including rural voters with water and land use concerns.

But, Jones said, President Donald Trump’s push for a tech boom and his megaphone may put Republicans at an advantage when it comes to data center messaging.

“I do think that even within the Republican Party, there is a growing concern on these things, and that that can impact these politicians’ ability to be successful this cycle,” Jones said. “But they do have that shield of Trump and the Trump administration promoting AI to give them a certain amount of buffer.”

In the Georgia governor’s race, Republican candidates are embracing and condemning data center investment — and throwing shots at one another either way.

Rick Jackson, a billionaire health care executive vying for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, told the TV station WMAZ in early April that he invests in a data center in Texas, saying that investment is the reason he’s “knowledgeable” about data centers and the business opportunity that could come with them.

“I have an investment there, so I’m just familiar with the economics. That’s the reason that I’m bullish for Georgia,” Jackson said. His campaign did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment for more details on his investment.

Trump has endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in that race where opponents are lambasting him for using his position to push a $10 billion data center project in Butts County, Georgia.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the project was backed by Jones and his family and could include 11 million square feet of data centers and a hospital. That’s 55 times the size of an average data center.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican also seeking the governor’s office, accused Jones of using his position to “enrich” himself and his family, referencing Jones’ support for a law that loosens regulations on where hospitals can be built that may have carved a path for the megaproject, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Jones recently stood in a field while taking a video of himself, panning the camera around to give viewers a picture of a grass-filled, empty pasture.

“My opponent has spent literally $20 million trying to make you believe that I own a data center, or my family owns one, or whatever,” Jones said in the video, referring to Jackson in his caption. “I just came to the property where they’re claiming it is. Guess what? Here it is. Here it is. I tell you what, it’s lies, lies, lies.”

A spokesperson for Carr’s campaign, Julia Mazzone, doubled down when NOTUS asked about Carr targeting Jones.

“Burt Jones owes it to Georgians to tell the truth about this project, its ties to his family’s land, and whether he is using public office for private financial gain. It is deeply inappropriate for public officials to use their office for personal gain. Is he serving the people of Georgia, or his own bottom line?” Mazzone said in a statement.

“Chris supports responsible economic development, but projects like this need transparency, local input, and clear protections for the communities affected. We are not going to force data centers on communities that don’t want them,” she continued, adding that Carr does not invest in any data centers.

Kayla Lott, a spokesperson for Jones’ campaign, told NOTUS in a statement: “The property in question is an undeveloped piece of pasture land. Period. There is no contract and no data center."]]> https://washingtonsun.com/money/democrats-fundraising-house-senate-election-2026-congress Alex Roarty Liberal money is pouring into races in Ohio, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia, where Democrats must win to win back the House or Senate. Thu, 16 Apr 2026 04:31:41 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/money/democrats-fundraising-house-senate-election-2026-congress Even at a time of inflated political-fundraising hauls, the numbers Democrats reported Wednesday stand out.

Many of the Democratic Party’s top candidates reported gargantuan fundraising totals for the first three months of the year — figures that reinforce the party’s growing confidence that it is gaining momentum roughly six months before the midterm election.

The Democrats’ Senate nominee in Texas, James Talarico, led the way by raising $27 million in the year’s first fundraising quarter, a figure that until recently would have been considered a strong return for a major presidential candidate, let alone a congressional contender.

But he wasn’t the only Senate Democratic nominee to post an impressive report to the Federal Election Commission: Roy Cooper, the Democrats’ Senate nominee in North Carolina, raised nearly $14 million, and Mary Peltola, the putative party nominee for Senate in Alaska, raised almost $9 million. Sherrod Brown, the likely nominee in Ohio, raised $12.5 million.

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s totals might be the most striking: The incumbent raised $14 million last quarter and has $31.7 million on hand, per FEC reports.
Jon Ossoff AP - 26038790210178 (5107x3314, AR: 1.54)Ossoff, Talarico, Cooper, Peltola and Brown had, combined, more than $80 million on hand to start April.

The Democrats’ financial successes last quarter, however, come with a caveat.

At the national level, the party still faces a steep financial disparity against Republicans, when including outside groups like MAGA Inc. and super PACs like the Senate Leadership Fund. And an expected Supreme Court decision this spring could give the GOP another advantage, letting them maximize the political impact of contributions from big donors and the more than $100 million in the Republican National Committee’s own warchest.

Here are other takeaways from the first-quarter fundraising deadline:

House Democrats score, too

Like their Senate counterparts, House Democratic candidates challenging Republican incumbents also reported impressive fundraising figures.

Democratic candidate Rebecca Cooke ($2.4 million) outraised Rep. Derrick Van Orden ($1.3 million) in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District. Sarah Trone Garriott ($1.7 million) raised more than Republican Rep. Zach Nunn ($1.3 million) in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. Janelle Stelson ($2.2 million) collected more than Rep. Scott Perry ($1.1 million). JoAnna Mendoza ($2.4 million) hauled in more than Rep. Juan Ciscomani ($1.1 million).
JanelleStelson (6432x4288, AR: 1.50)All four districts are top-tier battlegrounds in this year’s midterm election, the kind of races Democrats might need to win to claim a House majority in 2027.

Republican challengers also had financial success, with Tano Tijerina raising more than Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in Texas’ battleground 28th Congressional District, $600,000 to $490,000.

In another Texas swing district, Eric Flores raised $1.2 million, edging out Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez’s $1.1 million for the quarter.

House Republicans are counting on gaining seats in Texas after the state’s mid-decade redistricting to help combat a potentially difficult political environment in November and hold on to the party’s slim majority.

Cash-strapped primaries

Democratic Senate candidates aren’t raising as much money in contested primaries, suggesting that many of the party’s small and large donors alike are more interested in trying to defeat Republicans than settle intraparty scores.

In Iowa, for example, state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls each raised an almost identical $1.1 million last fundraising quarter. Rep. Angie Craig raised $2.5 million to Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s $1.3 million in Minnesota, while the three Democratic Senate candidates in Michigan raised a collective $7.2 million in the first fundraising quarter (more on that race below).
Election 2026 Senate Maine Graham Platner AP - 25293626326255 (3334x2222, AR: 1.50)Even in Maine, leftist firebrand Graham Platner reported raising $4 million, a strong quarter for a newcomer to politics but not the outrageous sum some Democratic candidates with uncontested primaries collected. His opponent in the Democratic primary, Gov. Janet Mills, raised $2.6 million.

Mills had just $1 million on hand to start the month, less than half of Platner’s $2.7 million, amid ongoing concerns about the state of her campaign.

Michigan stays tight 

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow posted the most impressive fundraising report in the closely watched three-way Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, although her two competitors trailed closely behind.

McMorrow raised the most cash during the year’s first three months ($3 million) and had the most cash on hand ($3.7 million) of the three competitors. Former gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed raised $2.2 million last quarter and had $2.5 million on hand, while Rep. Haley Stevens raised $2 million and had $3.4 million available to start April.

The race remains very competitive, with polls finding each of the three candidates within striking distance of one another. And like past fundraising quarters in this race, all three candidates continue to spend relatively heavily with the August primary still months away, much of it on costly digital-fundraising efforts.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/republicans/brian-kemp-derek-dooley-trump-georgia-endorsement Reese Gorman The Georgia governor’s pick to take on Sen. Jon Ossoff, Derek Dooley, is polling in a distant third and could likely force an expensive runoff in the must-win state. Wed, 25 Mar 2026 09:31:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/republicans/brian-kemp-derek-dooley-trump-georgia-endorsement Heading into the midterms, Republicans thought Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was their best chance to beat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

But Kemp declined to run, and is now, much to the befuddlement of national Republicans, supporting a candidate who is in a distant third and could likely force the GOP primary into an expensive runoff.

After Kemp decided last year against a Senate run, he ventured out to Trump National Golf Club in Virginia for a meeting with President Donald Trump.

The two reached an agreement to work together — along with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Senate Leadership Fund — and find the right candidate to take on Ossoff the following November, as NOTUS previously reported.

That didn’t happen, and as the likelihood of a runoff increases, the White House and Republicans are miffed that Kemp endorsed and continues to support former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley.

Sign Up for NOTUS’ Free Daily Newsletter

Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican from Georgia, told NOTUS that the race is “definitely going into a runoff” because he doubts one of the three candidates will win the more than 50% necessary to avoid one.

Clyde expressed annoyance with Kemp but said he wanted to “reserve his comments” when asked if he’s disappointed with how the race is playing out.

“As I understand, there was an agreement between the president and Kemp that they would come up with a candidate that both of them agreed to, and that never happened,” Cylde said.

When Dooley met with the White House and Senate Republicans’ campaign arms about his run, he left a favorable impression on those he met with, sources familiar with the meetings told NOTUS. But, because Kemp pushed Dooley without the express backing of Trump, it didn’t do Dooley any favors.

“You don't get to go past the Trump team and then turn around and come back to them and say, ‘Hey, can I have your endorsement now?’ Right? It was a strategic mistake,” one Georgia Republican told NOTUS.

In an interview, Kemp told NOTUS that he “very much appreciates” the way the White House has handled the situation and “communicated with me.” He emphasized that his goal was always to find a consensus candidate, but it “didn’t play out that way.”

He argued there appeared to be a lack of urgency from the White House and the national Senate Republican apparatus in finding a consensus candidate to take on Ossoff, and they needed to move quickly. Rep. Buddy Carter announced in May of last year that he would be running and Rep. Mike Collins announced his bid in mid-July. Kemp believed neither of those two had a chance to win and that “political outsiders are the best chance that we have” to win the Senate. Kemp ultimately endorsed Dooley in August.

“Other people were getting in the race and, you know, they wouldn't move, and I wasn't going to sit around and wait and have legislators keep endorsing other candidates,” Kemp told NOTUS. “I was doing all I could to get people to coalesce around one candidate. But when that didn't play out, I'm not going to sit around and do nothing when I have very strong feelings about what kind of candidate that we need to win in our state.”

He said he keeps in touch with the White House and Senate Republican leadership to keep them “apprised of different things that were going on on the Dooley side of the campaign.”

“Brian Kemp promised a fighter and delivered a footnote,” one senior GOP operative told NOTUS. “Nobody knew who Derek Dooley was before this race, and nobody’s going to after.”

Dooley’s father was famed University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, who, along with his wife Barbara, were “well loved” in the state, according to the Georgia Republican.

“Derek spent most of his time outside the state of Georgia,” the Republican said. “The name hasn’t translated for him.”

Another House member argued that Kemp’s theory on who would make the best candidate to take on Ossoff just hasn’t materialized yet.

“Gov. Kemp’s pitch has been that we need a nominee without a long legislative record, but the voters of Georgia, according to polls, haven’t yet accepted that argument,” the member said.

Republicans are still confident they can win Georgia regardless of who the nominee is. But privately, many admit that it would be easier if Kemp had just worked with them on finding a nominee — or just been the nominee himself.

“I understand that sentiment; it is frustrating because he did say that he would work with us,” another senior Republican operative said. “We all wanted Kemp to run in the first place, and we recognized early on that it was Kemp or bust in terms of finding a candidate to clear the primary field and then be the front-runner against Ossoff.”

“It would be one thing if this guy was well positioned, but literally his biggest liability is that nobody knows him,” the person said.
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/marjorie-taylor-greene-special-election-results-clay-fuller-shawn-harris Torrence Banks The closely watched Georgia race drew a crowd of Republican candidates looking to win the former Trump ally’s seat. Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:50:57 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/georgia/marjorie-taylor-greene-special-election-results-clay-fuller-shawn-harris Georgia district attorney Clay Fuller is heading into a runoff against Democrat Shawn Harris in a special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Out of the 12 Republicans that appeared on the ballot on Tuesday, Fuller was the candidate who received President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Fuller raised nearly $800,000 and had more than $200,000 on hand as of Feb. 18. Fuller raised the third most of the candidates in his race, only behind Harris and Republican Brian Stover.

With 75% of the ballots counted, Harris had received 38% of the votes compared to Fuller’s 34.7%. The runoff election is set to take place on April 7.

Prior to election night, Fuller told NOTUS that he felt Trump’s endorsement would be the difference.

“He's a very popular president, and he has created a movement,” Fuller said in a February interview. “The voters were looking to see where president Trump was. So it's kind of like rocket fuel for our campaign.”

Sign Up for NOTUS’ Free Daily Newsletter

Harris’ campaign platform included protecting Medicaid and SNAP benefits. He ran against Greene in 2024 but came up short with only 35.6% of the vote.

Greene, who was long one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, represented the state’s heavily-red 14th Congressional District from 2021 until January. The district covers Atlanta’s northwest suburbs and angles upward into Fort Oglethorpe.

She announced her resignation from Congress in November following disputes with Trump and Congressional Republicans over several issues, including the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein and health care. 

Republicans rushed into the race to replace her, bringing varied career experiences and platforms to the field. Several candidates told NOTUS last month that they were making a point of distinguishing themselves from Greene, who had a large national following, by promising to be lower profile.

Fuller, an Air Force veteran, was a White House fellow during the first Trump administration, working in the office of the vice president and the Department of Defense.

His platform focused heavily on immigration.

Trump visited the district last month to talk about the economy, and also traveled with Fuller throughout the district.

The winner of the runoff will complete the remainder of Greene’s term, but will have to stand for election again in another primary on May 19th to compete for a chance to serve a full two-year term. ]]> https://washingtonsun.com/democrats/democrats-messaging-epstein-scandal Emily Kennard How much do the Epstein files have to do with kitchen-table issues? The Democratic Party is debating ahead of the midterms. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 10:13:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/democrats/democrats-messaging-epstein-scandal Democrats have been publicly conflicted about how much to talk about Jeffrey Epstein on the campaign trail this year, with some worried a continued focus on the convicted sex offender and his political connections distracts from a winning platform centered on affordability.

Now a growing faction in the party is asking: Why not discuss both?

Some Democrats are now attempting to link the rolling Epstein scandal with the kitchen-table issues voters have traditionally prioritized. This wing of the party is pushing to establish the Epstein saga as emblematic of the Trump administration’s failure to address other issues the country faces.

“We were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans. You remember that? But this is a government of, by and for the ultra-rich. It is the wealthiest Cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class ruling our country,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection this year, said at a Georgia campaign rally on Saturday. “They are the elites they pretend to hate.”

Ossoff is known to walk on a purple-state tightrope. But his embrace of these us-versus-them talking points illustrates that the antiestablishment take on the Epstein scandal isn’t limited to his party’s progressive vanguard. Ossoff did not comment for this piece, but some strategists say his rhetoric offers a potent midterm message — if Democrats more broadly are willing to take it up.

Faiz Shakir, a progressive strategist and former Bernie Sanders presidential campaign manager, said Democrats focusing on the legal process of file releases and the administration’s transparency failures “doesn't do justice to what the main mission is.”

“Ossoff is on the right track, which is to say, I need to connect this thing, this saga, to something deeper about who fights for you and who doesn't fight for you, who understands your life, who doesn't understand your life,” Shakir said. “It's going to be critical that people are able to take this out of partisan terms and move it into a place of persuasion.”

Bill Neidhardt, a political consultant with Middle Seat, a progressive firm, said Ossoff’s rhetoric is “100% the right move.”

“He’s right to take that populist tone and to show he's on the side of Georgians and not the sides of the elite,” Neidhardt said, adding that it fits into the kind of “aggressive, populist economic message” he believes Democrats need to embrace to take back congressional majorities.

While Ossoff field-tests that rhetoric in the Southern battleground of Georgia, the progressive wing of his party sees the Epstein scandal as an indictment of the billionaire class and the wealth inequality that they’ve spent years railing against.

“What we should do is just tell the story of what it is,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. “It is the embodiment of the American concentration of wealth; when it becomes so extreme, this concentration of wealth becomes put in the hands of such few people that they know each other and they find themselves above the law.”

The Democratic National Committee’s stance on Epstein isn’t far off from that, either. It's making a concerted effort to bridge the gap between Democrats’ ongoing fight over redactions and the party’s broader economic offensive.

“The more Trump and his Department of Justice continue to stonewall and protect Jeffrey Epstein’s circle of elites, the more Americans can see that Trump is only interested in himself and the billionaires he surrounds himself with — not in lowering costs,” Kendall Witmer, DNC’s rapid response director, said in a statement.

Not all Democrats are convinced that conflating a high-profile sex trafficking ring with economic messaging will win them any political points.

“We should be focused on affordability and health care. The American people are struggling. Things have become unaffordable. You know, those are things people want to hear about. This is also an important issue, and we should talk about it, but at the same time, it isn’t the biggest issue for the American people,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who won a competitive race in Florida.

“The cost of rent has nothing to do about Epstein,” he added.

Some simply said the Epstein issue wasn’t top-of-mind in their districts. Rep. Jennifer McClellan said that what she hears most about from constituents and voters is "ICE and immigration, health care," not Epstein.

“When people do ask about the Epstein files, I think that we owe it to the survivors to get as much transparency and hold people accountable,” McClellan explained.

And some are focused on procedure. When asked how he thought his party should message about the Epstein issue, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, said he thought Democrats should continue “demanding the DOJ to release all the files.”

“The American public wants full transparency, and until we get the names of the men who are responsible for the harm, we’re not gonna stop,” Garcia said. “Justice for the survivors, to me, is the most important thing. And then transparency is the second piece.”

Several polls conducted last year indicated bipartisan and independent outrage at the federal government over the Epstein files among likely voters. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS last month, before the latest tranche of files, shows much of that discontent remains, with just 6% of Americans saying that they were satisfied with the information the government had released.

Some progressives argue that tying the matter to other issues Americans are upset about — like health care and the rising cost of goods — makes sense, even if it might seem challenging.

“The scope of his involvement with governments and business elites is worth hammering home. I think people kind of get it. They're not pushing on a locked door here. They're pushing on a quite open door,” said Jeff Hauser, the founder and executive director of the Revolving Door Project. “The challenge is more to consistently invoke it when it's not immediately before them, to invoke Epstein in conversations where Epstein is not obviously going to be part of it. Democrats are sometimes extremely earnest and linear, and so they limit certain conversations to certain conversations.”

And some leaders of groups on the left are now arguing that not only is it a messaging opportunity, but an opportunity for some bloodletting within their party.

“Poll after poll shows that voters still disapprove of the Democrats. The Epstein files give them an opportunity to demonstrate that they are focused on protecting the powerless from corrupt elites,” Sean Vitka, the executive director of Demand Progress, an anti-corporate activist group, said in a statement. “Going forward, the Democrats need to ditch the out-of-touch advisors in their ranks, some of whom are connected to Jeffrey Epstein, and aggressively pursue accountability, truth and justice for the victims and survivors — regardless of party.”

Some were even more blunt.

“If Democrats want to have the moral high ground, they must, by necessity, take shots at people in their own party, and take shots at funders specifically in their party,” said Erica Payne, a former Democratic strategist and founder and president of Patriotic Millionaires, a group of investors and business leaders who advocate for higher taxes for the wealthy. “If they pretend that it's one side and not the other, they will be unsuccessful in their efforts. And it's time for Bill Clinton to be thrown under the bus.”

The push to weaponize the Epstein scandal comes at a volatile moment for Democrats. Off-year elections handed them wins, ginning up optimism ahead of 2026, and generic ballot polls have them holding around a 6 percentage-point advantage among likely voters as of last month. Another poll from last month by Fox News of voters shows Democrats holding a similar lead, as well as a commanding 19 percentage-point lead on affordability.

Several congressional Democrats whom NOTUS spoke with for this story lamented how the Epstein issue has exacerbated the public’s cynicism toward all politics. Rep. Sarah McBride, a freshman, noted that there’s a widespread perception “that both parties are unwilling to hold the powerful and the wealthy to account.”

That means there’s a real risk of people — especially independent voters — viewing this scandal as a plague-of-both-houses issue, one Democratic strategist and pollster, Evan Roth Smith, warned.

“Most people outside of the political world, their primary reaction to this is one of just horror at the crimes, right? That so many prominent people were part of, or at least adjacent to, really terrible crimes of human trafficking, sexual abuse,” Smith said. “As soon as you pull it onto familiar, patently political territory, you do get people who start to tune out or start to question the message because of the messenger.”
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/courts/janice-johnston-georgia-fulton-county-fbi-raid-2020-election Jose Pagliery New documents obtained by NOTUS show the extent to which a little-known MAGA member of Georgia’s elections board set into motion the highly unusual FBI raid on Fulton County. Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:05:12 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/courts/janice-johnston-georgia-fulton-county-fbi-raid-2020-election When heavily armed FBI agents in camouflage body armor raided a Fulton County government building last month and seized 2020 election records, Janice Johnston, a retired obstetrician and vice chair of the state’s election board, was there.

Law enforcement standing guard prevented Johnston from entering the warehouse, and she became frustrated she couldn’t monitor the seizure from the sidelines, according to three eyewitnesses who spoke to NOTUS. Johnston called out, “But it's our subpoena!” according to David Worley, a Democratic former member of that board who was also present at the scene.

FBI teams seized what Fulton County Superior Court Clerk Ché Alexander said was 656 boxes of election documents as part of the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation into the 2020 election. But Johnston had been fighting for 15 months with a subpoena that demanded the Fulton County clerk turn over 2020 election records directly to her Gmail account.

In many ways, Johnston was the driving force behind the Trump administration’s highly contentious incursion into state-run election operations which began years earlier. She orchestrated a MAGA takeover of the Georgia election board, pushed a slow and steady beat of 2020 election denialism and called for the second Trump administration to show up in Georgia as she fought a civil suit to get the investigation she wanted.

What Johnston couldn’t get through the civil legal process, the Trump administration took by force — by slapping a criminal label on the matter, state and federal documents show.

An FBI agent’s affidavit, unsealed on Tuesday, confirmed Johnston’s outsized role as well, listing her as a primary witness — even though her name was redacted.

“Would this have happened without Janice? No,” said Sara Tindall Ghazal, the lone Democrat on the Georgia State Election Board. “If Janice had not constantly rejected the results of board-certified law enforcement officials’ investigations of all of these claims, if she hadn't constantly platformed election deniers and their claims, this would not be a thing.”

Johnston did not respond to questions Wednesday about her assessment of the role she’s played in the legal drama that has huge implications for the 2026 midterm elections — especially as President Donald Trump has indicated he'd like to see a federal takeover of state-run elections.

Fulton County FBI AP-26028840676225 (2904x1936, AR: 1.50)
Dr. Janice Johnston is a retired OBGYN, who, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, would attend Fulton County elections board meetings as a private citizen to cast doubt on 2020 election results and demand the local elections director be fired. The Georgia Republican Party nominated her to the state election board in early 2022.

“My goal, as always, is election integrity — and whatever it takes to achieve that,” she said during one of her first meetings that year.

Since then, Johnston has vexed her more moderate colleagues. She steamrolls over Ghazal, the Democrat on the five-person state panel. William Duffey Jr., a retired federal judge who chaired the board, stepped down after years of debunking 2020 fraud claims. And Johnston doesn’t even loop in the current chair, Waffle House executive John Fervier, when she makes legal decisions on behalf of the board.

One persistent point of contention is a complaint submitted to the election board in July 2022 — that has a direct throughline to last month’s raid.

It started with a report that examined supposed “inconsistencies” in 2020 tabulator results that was put together by Joseph Rossi, who has been described in legal documents as a retired executive in Georgia, and Kevin Moncla, a conservative activist in Texas.

The election board’s official investigation results, published publicly here for the first time, concluded that most of the claims were off base.

Investigators determined that the election deniers had “conflated ballots cast with total votes,” an elementary error given that someone could cast a ballot without ever voting for a presidential candidate. The complaint that “no records” existed of 10 vote tabulators at early voting sites turned out to be a faulty assertion that relied on an earlier inaccurate explanation by the county in response to a public records request. And the 2020 truthers’ suspicions about a cybersecurity elections expert turned out to be unfounded, because he was actually an official contractor for the county.

The one thing investigators found that “partially substantiated” the complaint was that some ballot images had indeed been double-scanned during the recount. But investigators stated clearly that “these investigative findings do not affect the accuracy of the results of the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.” Trump’s net gain of seven votes (and former President Joe Biden’s loss of 932 votes) didn’t change the outcome of the race.

The board voted in May 2024 to issue a simple “letter of reprimand” to Fulton to do better. But that wasn’t enough for Johnston, who kept bringing up that complaint at board meetings as an “unresolved” matter.

Her constant beating of the drum was supported by an August 2024 letter to the board, obtained by NOTUS, in which Moncla claimed “the initial investigation was a sham.” Notably, the letter cc’d an election-denying lawyer named Kurt Olsen — who at that time had also “been in direct contact” with then-candidate Trump while MAGA affiliates prepared to potentially challenge that year’s election results, according to The New York Times.

Johnston also kept appearing at board meetings with written statements and legal assertions, causing several high-ranking officials in Georgia elections administration to begin suspecting that Johnston was receiving legal advice from nonofficial channels, three people told NOTUS.

When an election board paralegal forwarded Johnston a public records request from a Politico reporter asking for communications with any mention of “outside lawyers,” the retired doctor responded an hour later with a curt email from her iPad: “Unresponsive. Attorney-Client privilege.” Johnston had the same answer when a New York Times reporter a few days later asked specifically for any emails between Johnston and Robert Barker, a lawyer who had worked on a failed attempt to flip the Georgia election results.

Johnston kept up the pressure. Just as the polls closed during the presidential election on Nov. 5, 2024, Johnston had a subpoena seeking four-year-old general election records served on the Fulton County clerk — something that several sources described as an intimidation tactic. The elections department couldn’t possibly respond that day while workers — who’d already responded to bomb threats — were busy counting ongoing ballots. Johnston didn’t even notify the board chair, Fervier, who in a later meeting claimed he was told it was because he was considered an "obstructionist.”

Fulton County resisted the subpoena in court, claiming that copying all the requested election records would cost upwards of $400,000 — money the elections board didn’t have. So last summer, Johnston made a public cry for help.

In the closing moments of the board’s meeting on July 30, 2025, she surprised her colleagues with a new proposal and asked for a five-minute recess so they could review the draft resolution to “seek the assistance” of the DOJ in getting the documents.

The measure passed 3-2, with Johnston supported by two Trump-supporting board members.

Two months later, on Oct. 30, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent the Fulton County Registration and Elections Board a letter demanding “all records” sought by Johnston’s subpoena. The action came just after The Wall Street Journal reported that Olsen, the election-denying lawyer, had joined the Trump administration as a “special government employee” to investigate 2020 voting-related issues.

The Justice Department sued the county on Dec. 11, starting what could have been a lengthy civil fight in federal court. But the very next week, a judge overseeing the election board’s own subpoena fight in state court issued a ruling that seemed like a compromise. Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney derided the requests as “stale and ill-timed,” but he still said the county would need to produce the documents — as long as the state board was able to pay for the work.

That tradeoff threatened to undermine the DOJ civil action underway. Now Johnston couldn’t say the records were being denied.

But then came the FBI raid in January, with agents in military gear entering the large, nondescript white warehouse on the suburban outskirts of Atlanta known as the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was spotted at the raid, raising serious questions about the involvement of spy agencies.

The unsealed FBI affidavit points to the initial complaint to the Georgia election board from Moncla and Rossi and credits Olsen, described as the “presidentially appointed director of election security and integrity,” for making a criminal referral. None of them responded to NOTUS questions on Wednesday, nor did the DOJ.

In court on Friday, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which led the lawsuit, made a startling admission: The DOJ had essentially used authorities reserved for criminal cases to get what it had previously sought in the civil context with a judge’s permission.

“Here, the criminal proceedings and the civil case appear to almost completely overlap. At issue are likely the same records, reflecting similar questions about the same transaction or event. The records seized are the object of the litigation,” a prosecutor wrote, asking the judge to pause the lawsuit for now.

The throughline from Johnston to the raid was complete. But her work isn’t done.

NOTUS obtained documents that show Johnston is pushing for even more action against locals she has long accused of improperly administering the 2020 election — on the notion that Fulton County somehow hid records from the FBI.

Seizing on the fact that Fulton County previously estimated the stash of records at approximately 700 boxes — but the FBI picked up 656 of them — she emailed her colleagues on Saturday, “Where are the 50 boxes??”

“I have grave concerns about the security of the ballots and the documents before the arrival of the FBI,” Johnston wrote.

Johnston had the election board’s executive director sign a “hold letter” dated Feb. 6 demanding that the Fulton County clerk “retain all documents” related to the 2020 election — never mind that the FBI already seized those records. She raised the same issue in a public social media post addressed to Gabbard and Bondi.

“DO NOT RETURN FULTON COUNTY BALLOTS AND ELECTION DOCUMENTS TO FULTON COUNTY UNTIL THEY HAVE ALL BEEN COPIED, REVIEWED AND INVESTIGATED,” she posted. “TOO MANY QUESTIONS TO ANSWER.”
]]>