Lighthearted texts don’t jibe with pressure ethics chief said she felt

In a controversial memo released last week, LaBerge claims that on July 16 and July 17, 2012, she was threatened by Deal counsel Ryan Teague, and pressured by Teague and Riley, to settle a series of complaints against Deal’s 2010 campaign for governor.

The release of the memo has brought new criticism down on Deal, along with pressure from Democrats who hope that ethics questions give them a shot at unseating the GOP incumbent. But Deal’s camp pivoted to the offensive Monday in a conference call with more than 50 Republican lawmakers in which the governor questioned the “strange” timing of the memo’s emergence and said it was purely political.

The new texts obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News show that LaBerge and Riley carried on a jocular conversation that ended with LaBerge thanking Riley “for the kind words.”

The back-and-forth came less than a week before the ethics commission voted to dismiss major charges against Deal, who agreed to pay $3,350 in fees for technical violations in his campaign disclosure.

Ten months later, in May 2013, Riley wrote a letter of recommendation for LaBerge’s application to Leadership Georgia, an affiliate of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce that develops leaders. The letter came at LaBerge’s request.

“I am following up on a text message I sent Chris last week about the letter of recommendation for Leadership Georgia,” LaBerge wrote to Brandi Brumlow, in Riley’s office, on May 28, 2013.

Weeks later, in July, Riley texts LaBerge with positive news: “I just got a text from the review panel for LG (Leadership Georgia). You are in play. This is a good thing.”

Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said Riley, an alumnus of Leadership Georgia, writes many recommendations for potential applicants to the group each year.

“It definitely shows there was no animus,” Robinson said of the texts. “It shows there was a professional and respectful relationship.”

As do the earlier texts between the two, Robinson said.

For instance, on the night of July 17, 2012, shortly after she alleges she was pressured by Riley, LaBerge texted him to inquire why she received a mail piece to all state agency heads that included the name of her predecessor.

“Is this a subliminal message that the Governor’s Office wants her back?” LaBerge wrote at 9:49 p.m.

A minute later, Riley wrote and said he didn’t remember the mailer, but he quickly wrote again: “You can’t leave, you have common sense and that office you are in is like a huge vacuum it sucks all the common sense out of people. :)”

Those texts, Robinson said, “do not show a relationship that is too cozy or too hostile. They are in a tone appropriate to the workplace.”

But the friendly nature of these newly released communications appears to contradict the idea that LaBerge and Deal’s office were at odds in the days leading up to the July 23, 2012, commission hearing where complaints against Deal’s campaign were dismissed.

LaBerge said she wrote the memo on July 17 after she told then-commission Chairman Kevin Abernethy about the calls and texts from Teague. She felt Teague had threatened to punish the agency if the cases weren’t settled, potentially costing it an opportunity to recover its rule-making authority. Abernethy told her to put her recollections down on paper.

The memo includes details of Teague’s and Riley’s messages to her, but they do not include the late-night texts about the mail pieces or Leadership Georgia.

The memo, however, has become a source of great controversy. Questions remain as to who knew about the memo and when.

Lawyers for four former ethics commission employees who sued the state and claimed they lost their jobs over the Deal investigation and its aftermath, say the memo and the text messages it references, should have been turned over as part of the discovery period of the lawsuits.

Attorney General Sam Olens said his office determined that did not have to happen, but he also said he is concerned LaBerge did not provide all the documents required to fulfill the discovery requests. The AJC obtained the memo last week through an Open Records Act request to Olens’ office.

Olens has said he cannot speak publicly about the case because LaBerge is technically still his client and the attorney-client privilege bars him from discussing what happened and when.

LaBerge’s private lawyer, Lee Parks, made clear in a letter to the commission that LaBerge is seeking protections under the state whistleblower act. Parks could not be reached for comment Monday.

In his conference call with lawmakers Monday, Deal called the memo’s release “simply a political effort to discredit me, and it’s been going on since 2010.”

“Why would anyone want to continue looking at this issue?” he said. “For purely political reasons.”

Deal said his office, which doesn’t have oversight over the ethics commission, has little say in its matters.

“Let me ask you a practical question: What could the governor’s office threaten her with? We could not fire her. … We could not cut her salary. … We could not take or give rule-making authority to the commission.”

In each case, Deal said, the answer is either with the commission’s five-member board or state lawmakers. Deal, however, does have great sway over the state budget, which funds the commission, and he has great power to influence legislation. The proposal to restore the commission’s rule-making authority passed in 2013 with his signature.