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A star witness in Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ lawsuit against a voter integrity law passed last year has been exposed as an anti-Trump partisan by attorneys for the state.
An Abrams-aligned group, Fair Fight Action, has sued GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office in a bid to have Georgia’s “exact match” ID and citizen checks for voters struck down, but her effort hit a major snag after one of the organization’s expert witnesses was destroyed during a brutal cross-examination in federal court, Just the News reported.
Specifically, the outlet said:
Adrienne Jones, a 22-year political science professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was called last Friday by Abrams’ Fair Fight Action Inc. group as an expert witness in the ongoing civil trial against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state officials defending their voter integrity rules.
Jones was immediately put on the defensive by the lawyer representing Raffensperger and the other state officials, forced to admit to penning several incendiary writings.
One was a column where she called for black women to “overthrow” President Donald Trump. Another was an article where she claimed Republicans wanted to create “internment camps” for Americans, according to a trial transcript reviewed by Just the News.
Jones also had to acknowledge she made a political contribution to Sarah Tindall Ghazal, one of the State Election Board members that Abrams’ group has sued in the case. The expert witness wasn’t even aware Ghazal was a defendant.
“You actually contributed to Ms. Ghazal’s past campaign, right?” asked defense attorney Carey Miller at one point.
“I did,” the professor responded.
“And you are aware that Ms. Ghazal is a defendant in this case?” Miller queried.
“No,” Jones replied.
Just the News reported that Jones sent $315 to Ghazal’s campaign for a state representative’s seat in 2020.
The outlet said that Miller’s cross was polite but it was intense, having been interrupted a number of times by objections from the plaintiff’s lawyers in an attempt to derail her. But U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones declined the objections saying he believed that the line of questions were appropriate.
“I think Mr. Miller is trying to discredit this witness. … I think he is allowed to do it,” Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, remarked.
At another point, the judge said, “I’m assuming he’s offering this trying to show me that, hey, that this witness is biased.”
“Jones is presiding over what many see as a high-stakes voting rights bench trial — with no jury — as he tries to evaluate Fair Fight’s claims that Georgia’s requirement for ‘exact match’ voter ID and citizenship checks violate the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act,” Just the News reported.
The group, which Abrams founded after she lost the 2018 gubernatorial contest to GOP nominee Brian Kemp, claims that ensuring people are who they are and are legally able to cast ballots somehow “violate the fundamental right to vote as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” The group also argues that the law is racially discriminating “against Georgians of color” and that it discriminates “against Georgians based on where they live and based on naturalized citizenship status in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”
Just the News reports that leftist Democrats hope a victory in the case will lead to a loosening of voter integrity laws passed in various GOP-led states following a highly contentious 2020 election rife with allegations of vote fraud, including in Georgia.
At one point, Jones was confronted by an August 2018 article where she likened the 2018 election to 1955 and claimed that Republicans would create internment camps for political enemies.
“Are you asserting here that Republicans in Congress are encouraging internment camps in 2018?” Miller asked Jones.
“Yes,” she answered.
“You are?” Miller followed in apparent disbelief.
“Yes.”
The professor also had to answer questions regarding another article in which she said Democratic Party efforts “to pay attention to black and minority voters will be critical to its ability to overthrow the president,” meaning Trump.
After asking Jones what she meant, the professor admitted she engaged in “a dramatic flourish.”
“This would not be a literal overthrow,” she clarified. “I’m talking about elections here.”
