Gov. Brian Kemp has appointed a three-person panel tasked with deciding whether embattled Cobb County Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor should remain in office during her own criminal case.
Taylor was indicted last month on charges she instructed an employee to destroy public documents instead of handing them over in response to an open records request from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
She faces two counts of destruction of public records and two counts of violating her oath of office following an investigation by the GBI. The charges were brought by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr following a slew of controversies related to Taylor’s conduct in office.
The three-member commission appointed by Kemp includes two Georgia clerks and a retired Georgia Supreme Court justice.
Former Justice Keith Blackwell, Banks County Superior Court Clerk Tim Harper and Dodge County Superior Court Clerk Rhett Walker will review Taylor’s indictment and determine whether she should be suspended from office. The panel was told to submit its recommendation to the governor within two weeks.
The AJC reported in November 2022 about Taylor taking passport processing fees as personal income, which is legal in Georgia and resulted in more than $425,000 of additional income for the clerk in the two years since she was first elected.
The AJC submitted requests under the Georgia Open Records Act for emails, financial records and other documents to further that reporting.
A whistleblower employee from her office then came forward through an attorney alleging Taylor had ordered her to delete records related to the fees, instead of providing them to the AJC.
The employee said Taylor instructed her to “Donald Trump this thing” and “get rid of” the requested records.
At the time, Taylor said the passport income included nearly $84,000 in expedited passport shipping costs, which she was not permitted to keep as personal income.
Her office agreed to return the shipping fees to the county, but did not do so until years later in February 2025.
The indictment alleges Taylor directed her employee “to delete a digital folder on the employee’s work computer titled ‘Passport’ which contained accounting records” and an email with the subject line “Expedited Passport Revenue Analysis.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced it was launching a probe of Taylor’s office later in 2022 and the matter was referred to the AG’s office last year.
Taylor, who sailed to reelection last November, has an arraignment scheduled Sept. 2 in the Cobb County courthouse where she works.
— AJC staff writer Taylor Croft contributed to this article.
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