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The case, first filed in 2019 by Atlanta resident Melvin Robertson, involved baffling and seemingly baseless allegations against Warnock that date back to 2005 when he was a pastor. It was dismissed by a federal district court judge in Georgia without any of the defendants being served.
But Robertson refiled a similar lawsuit in April 2021, outlining the same allegations against Warnock while also suing Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he has long served as senior pastor, and other public figures.
This time, Warnock was serving in the Senate. And he enlisted his campaign attorneys from Elias Law Group to represent him in the case, along with an Atlanta firm, Krevolin & Horst, which assisted ELG.
The issue for Warnock is whether this was a proper use of campaign funds.
Federal Election Commission guidance states that campaign money can be used on “litigation expenses where the candidate/officeholder was the defendant and the litigation arose directly from campaign activity or the candidate’s status as a candidate.”
To me, this is a violation of the Federal Election Commission's guidance, as the allegations of the lawsuit predate his time in the Senate. The question is, will he be punished, if an investigation were to come to a concurring conclusion? A lot of politicians with a (D) next to their name tend to evade consequences for their actions, such as Representative Waters' comments on the Chauvin trial, "I hope we get a verdict that’s guilty, guilty, guilty. If we don’t, we have to get more confrontational,", and Senator Schumer's threats against Supreme Court Justices, with whom he disagrees, "I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions!".
...“This frivolous lawsuit against Senator Reverend Warnock and other public officials was served at his official office and is based on laws that only apply to him because of his status as a sitting office holder,” said Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic election law attorney who represents Warnock’s campaign, in a statement to POLITICO. “It’s completely legal and appropriate to have used campaign funds on this legal matter, as many federal office holders have done before. Any suggestion otherwise is completely false.”...
(emphasis mine)
If that's accurate - seems like an allowable use of campaign dollars, see the references to the "irrespective test". If not, it's probably not an allowable use. I guess we'll find out.
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