An ethics watchdog Tuesday asked Georgia’s attorney general and its inspector general to investigate Gov. Sonny Perdue’s mingling of public and private business.
George Anderson, who frequently files complaints alleging ethical misdeeds by elected officials, wrote that Perdue “has violated the public’s trust” by meeting with state employees to boost his trucking and grain businesses.
Rome’s Anderson based his complaints on an article in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution that detailed the governor’s links over the past three years with ports, agriculture and economic development officials. In September 2009, for example, Perdue and two men who run his trucking company met in Savannah with a half dozen Georgia Ports Authority employees.
The offices of the attorney general and the inspector general received copies of the same complaint Tuesday afternoon. Spokesmen, though, would not comment.
Bert Brantley, spokesman for Perdue, said: “This is yet another frivolous complaint filed by Mr. Anderson, solely based on a news story that was full of speculation and innuendo, not facts.”
In his complaints, Anderson cited Georgia’s code of ethics for public officials, which states that no government official shall “engage in business with the government, either directly or indirectly, which is inconsistent with the conscientious performance of his governmental duties.”
The AJC reported that Perdue met once with state employees to learn how to grow his grain and trucking businesses.
The governor’s business associates met with ports officials on at least four other occasions since January 2009. There was also contact between Perdue’s employees and officials with the state Economic Development and Agriculture departments, according to e-mails and other information obtained by the AJC.
Brantley said Perdue and his partners were simply gathering information, available to any Georgian, for his post-gubernatorial business life.
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