Gov. Nathan Deal will not have to testify in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by the former director of the state ethics commission, the judge in the case ruled Monday.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville granted the state’s motion to quash the subpoena, meaning former commission director Stacey Kalberman may not force Deal to answer questions in the trial that began Monday.
Kalberman claims she was forced from her position in 2011 after aggressively investigating Deal’s 2010 campaign.
Her attorneys said Deal had “personal and firsthand” knowledge of information needed to build Kalberman’s case. The state said the governor had no such information. Glanville ruled that it is unclear whether Deal could offer relevant testimony and that “nothing in the record, save plaintiff’s assertions, suggests that Governor Deal was involved in the decisions related to the plaintiff’s employment.”
Kalberman’s suit began a series of events that threw the commission into turmoil. The agency charged with overseeing how public officials raise and spend campaign money faces two other whistleblower lawsuits, plus at least two state inquiries into its performance and federal grand jury subpoenas.
Earlier Monday, Deal said he would testify if called.
“I’d answer whatever question they’d ask me,” Deal told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I just can’t imagine that they could ask me much. I don’t know very much about what they’re concerned with.”
What they’re concerned with is whether the ethics commission sought to force Kalberman from her job for attempting to investigate whether Deal’s campaign violated state ethics laws. The dispute centers on a few months in late spring 2011 when Kalberman and her former top deputy, Sherilyn Streicker, asked members of the commission to approve draft subpoenas for documents related to the Deal case.
The subpoenas went unsent, and within weeks Kalberman was told that the commission faced a financial crisis, that her salary would be cut 30 percent and Streicker’s job would be eliminated. Meanwhile, commissioners and a Deal aide were interviewing Holly LaBerge as a possible replacement for Kalberman.
Kalberman eventually agreed to resign. LaBerge was hired, and in 2012, the commission dismissed the major complaints against Deal, who agreed to pay $3,350 in technical fees for errors in his campaign finance reports.
Streicker, meanwhile, has filed her own whistleblower lawsuit against the commission, as has former commission computer specialist John Hair. Hair claims LaBerge ordered him to alter and destroy documents related to the Deal case, a charge LaBerge denies.
In the Kalberman case, jury selection was still in process late Monday. Lawyers for both sides are expected to make opening statements Tuesday. Then, Kalberman’s attorneys are expected to call as witnesses former commission chairman Patrick Millsaps, LaBerge and the man LaBerge beat out for the job.
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