atlanta — It’s the biggest mystery in Georgia politics right now: Who pays for the attacks on the Republican Lt. Gov. Bert Jones?
Someone operating under the name Georgians for Integrity spent about $5 million TV adsMail and texts. The attacks claim that Jones, who already serves as president Endorsing Donald Trump In his run for governor next year, he was using his position to enrich himself.
For any Georgian who settles down to watch a football game, ads have become almost unavoidable since Thanksgiving. It’s the first shot in the overall battle for the Republican nomination that will be decided in the May primary. But the ads also show how Dark money It influences politics not only at the national level but at the state level, as secret interests drop large sums of money seeking to change public opinion.
The Jones campaign is jumping the gun, threatening legal action against TV stations if they don’t stop airing ads that one lawyer calls “demonstrably false” and slanderous.
To date, the ads are still on the air.
“They want to remain anonymous, spend a lot of money, and make up a lot of lies about me and my family,” Jones says. WSB-AM said In an interview on December 16, he called the ads “contrived garbage.”
Attorney General Chris Carr And the Minister of State Brad RaffenspergerJones’s main rivals for the Republican nomination say they were not involved in the attacks. All three want to succeed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who cannot run again because of term limits. There are also several Democrats vying for the state’s highest office.
The Georgia Republican Party has I filed a complaint With the State Ethics Commission. The GOP claims the ads violate Georgia’s campaign finance law against election spending without donor registration and disclosure.
“I think there are far-reaching consequences for allowing this activity to go forward unchecked,” state Republican Party Chairman Josh McCune told The Associated Press. “And the consequences are much broader than the outcome of the primaries in May.”
It is a further refinement of a 2010 US Supreme Court decision Citizens Union decisionThat has led to significant increases in independent spending in U.S. elections, said Shana Ports, chief legal counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, which seeks to limit the influence of money in politics.
“Dark money is increasingly becoming the norm in races, at the top and bottom of the ballot, and in the early aughts,” Portes said.
Allegations that Jones was engaging in self-dealing are nothing new — as Carr was Perform similar attacks For several months. But things escalated after Georgians for Integrity was established in Delaware on November 24, according to company records in that state. The entity defines itself as a social welfare nonprofit under federal tax law, a common way of organizing campaign spending that allows the group to hide its donors.
Jones’ campaign says the ad falsely leads viewers to believe that Jones enabled the government to seize land through royalty to help support his family’s interest in developing a massive data center in Jones’ home district south of Atlanta. As a state senator, Jones voted for a 2017 law that opened a narrow exception in Georgia law prohibiting governments from transferring property seized through condemnation proceedings to private developers. But eminent domain is not being used for the $10 billion development project Government filings The bid could include 11 million square feet (1 million square metres) of data centres.
Georgians for Integrity lists its local address as a PO box at an office supply store in Atlanta East on some paperwork submitted to television stations. A media buyer named Alex Roberts, with an address in Park City, Utah, was also listed in those papers, but did not respond to an email from the AP. An attorney for Kimberly Land, who is from Columbus, Ohio, is not listed on the incorporation papers. After weeks of massive spending, no one could prove who was providing the money.
The Republican Party asserts that Georgians for Integrity is an independent committee under Georgia law. This means they can raise and spend unlimited amounts, but they must register before accepting contributions and must disclose their donors.
But this law defines these committees as expending “money either for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election for any elected office or to advocate the election or defeat of any particular candidate.” And the ads targeting Jones never identify him as running for governor or mention the 2026 election, instead urging viewers to call Jones and “Tell Bert, stop taking advantage of taxpayers.”
But Macon said these are “semantic games” and that ordinary voters certainly believe the ads are designed to influence them.
“If you’re funding a message designed to influence an election — and I think it’s naive to say that’s not the case here — then you have to abide by the campaign finance laws that the Legislature has seen fit to pass,” McCone said.