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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been following the ethics commission controversy since the very beginning. Log on to www.MyAJC.com where you can:
- Explore an updated version of the AJC's exclusive interactive graphic of who's who in the Deal ethics controversy and how they relate to each other
- Learn more about the governor's push for an ethics overhaul
- Read about how the ethics issue could affect the 2014 governor's race
- Go deeper into the commission's background and find out why a recent chairman calls the agency "a train wreck"
Attorney General Sam Olens’ office will not represent the state ethics commission or its director, Holly LaBerge, against charges that LaBerge failed to turn over key records in a lawsuit filed by her predecessor.
In an email to LaBerge and commissioners, Olens’ top deputy said it would be a conflict for the Attorney General’s Office to represent itself, the commission and LaBerge.
Former director Stacey Kalberman last week asked a judge to sanction and fine Olens' office, the commission and LaBerge for not turning over texts and emails that showed LaBerge communicated with top aides to Gov. Nathan Deal just a week before the commission was to decide whether he violated state campaign finance laws.
In a scathing reply to Chief Deputy Attorney General Jeff Milsteen, LaBerge’s private attorney said it was “disappointing” that the attorney general will not represent LaBerge, but that “it is not surprising, though, given the great lengths to which the attorney general has gone to shirk responsibility for the decisions his office made” during the Kalberman case.
LaBerge attorney Lee Parks accuses Olens’ office of “trying to blame Ms. LaBerge for the ‘cover up’ of key documents.”
Olens has hired former state Rep. Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, to defend his office against the motion for sanctions. In a reply to Parks, Lindsey disagreed with Parks’ assessment but declined to go into detail.
“We are confident that the court will find that the Attorney General’s Office at all times in this case acted within its professional duties and obligations to its clients, opposing parties, and the court,” Lindsey wrote.
The dispute centers on a memo LaBerge said she wrote in July 2012 detailing calls and texts she received from Deal chief of staff Chris Riley and chief counsel Ryan Teague. LaBerge said in the memo that she felt pressured by the communications, which were related to a hearing the following week concerning Deal's 2010 campaign. At that hearing, commissioners considered a series of complaints alleging that Deal had improperly raised, spent and reported campaign contributions.
While Deal was cleared of major violations and paid $3,350 in fees for technical defects in his campaign reports, the memo was kept hidden until this summer, months after a Fulton County jury awarded Kalberman $1.15 million in damages and attorneys fees in a whistleblower lawsuit against the ethics commission.
Kalberman claimed that she was forced from her job in 2011 for aggressively investigating the Deal complaints. The memo would have likely bolstered her case.
Both Olens and LaBerge agree that LaBerge turned the memo over to the Attorney General’s Office as Kalberman’s case was progressing. Olens’ staff, however, determined that it did not have to be turned over to Kalberman’s attorneys.
The two sides disagree, however, over whether LaBerge ever told Olens’ staff that she had emailed herself copies of the texts from Teague and Riley. Olens has said he first learned about the emails from news reports.
Parks said she told Olens’ staff about the email copies of the texts but said she was never asked for them.
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