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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has spent years following infighting, funding lapses and legal challenges plaguing the state’s ethics commission. To see a timeline detailing that coverage plus copies of documents associated with the most recent turn in the story, go to MyAJC.com.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday filed a complaint with Attorney General Sam Olens to “take all necessary measures” to ensure the ethics commission and its director, Holly LaBerge, to comply with the state’s Open Records Act.
Attorneys for the paper say specifically that LaBerge failed to comply with the act when she did not turn over a now-controversial memo to the AJC in response to a records request filed in July 2012.
On July 26, 2012, the AJC requested “access to and copies of all records, including interviews, audits, emails, faxes and any and all documents including case files” related to the investigation into Gov. Nathan Deal’s 2010 campaign.
LaBerge released thousands of pages of documents related to the Deal investigation, but not the memo, which was dated July 17, 2012. Reporters quickly realized records were missing. After the AJC asked the Attorney General’s Office to intervene, LaBerge released more documents, but still the memo was missing.
The AJC revealed the memo's existence last week. In it, LaBerge details what she says are text messages and phone calls she received from top Deal aides in the week before the commission was to rule on the complaints against him. LaBerge said Deal chief of staff Chris Riley and chief counsel Ryan Teague "pressured" her and that Teague threatened the agency if several of the cases weren't settled without a hearing.
The commission met July 23, 2012, and dismissed major charges against Deal, who had been accused of improperly raising and spending campaign funds. Deal agreed to pay $3,350 in administrative fees for technical defects in his campaign disclosures.
It has become clear, attorneys Tom Clyde and Lesli Gaither wrote to Olens, that “production of records by the commission was woefully incomplete.”
Jeff Milsteen, chief deputy attorney general, said in a response to the paper that it appears “a number of documents contained in Ms. LaBerge’s personal email accounts may well have been responsive” to the paper’s request.
However, he said, because Olens’ office still represents LaBerge in a related lawsuit, “this mater presents insurmountable conflicts in our ability to independently investigate or pursue separate open records violations.”
Milsteen said state law allows the paper to pursue its own court action to enforce the records act.
Anyone who “knowingly and willfully violates” the Open Records Act “by failing or refusing to provide access to records not subject to exemption within the statutory time frame” can be found guilty of a misdemeanor and fined up to $1,000.
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