New questions are emerging as Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams faces scrutiny over large payments made by her election-focused nonprofit to a firm run by a close friend—a friend who has also chaired her former and current gubernatorial campaigns. Earlier this week, Politico reported that Stacey Abrams’ voting rights non-profit, Fair Fight Action, paid over $9.4 million in legal fees in fiscal years 2019 and 2020 to a law firm partially owned by Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams’ “Close friend who chaired her gubernatorial campaign both in 2018 and her current bid.”
It is the extraordinarily high price tag associated with the payments that has drawn greater suspicion among observers. Filings show that Fair Fight Action spent over $25 million in legal contests over the period disclosed in the financial reports. Lawrence-Hardy’s firm, one of eight who worked on the case against Raffensperger, absorbed over 37% of the total costs incurred during the legal fight. This indicates that one of every three dollars spent by Fair Fight Action on this case over the last two years has been directed into the pockets of Abrams’ longtime friend—a ratio which far outsizes other participants in this process as well as what organizations in similar circumstances are typically known for.
Abrams and Lawrence-Hardy have known each other for much of their adult lives. The two were classmates at Spellman College in undergrad, and both subsequently went on to study law at Yale. In fact, Lawrence-Hardy claims to have been present for the conversation where Abrams was first urged to run for governor.
This close relationship has led some to suggest impropriety and potential conflicts of interest. Craig Holman, an expert on campaign finance and ethics at the non-partisan consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, stated “that kind of close link to the litigation and her friend that provides an opportunity where the friend gets particularly enriched from this litigation.” The Abrams campaign has refuted the claim that the litigation is intended to help her candidacy, contending that “the goal was to create a fair process, not bring about a certain result.”
Of note, however, is the apparent attempt to downplay the veracity of the story. Days after the article caught steam online, Public Citizen released an “official clarification” on Holman’s quote from the Politico piece, seemingly retracting his sentiments in very public fashion. The retraction seemed to come at the behest of the organization itself, not Mr. Holman, which raises even more questions about its intentions. Furthermore, the organization went as far as to conclude that there was “no conflict of interest or any problem at all,” a bold claim to make without thorough investigation and deduction. ProPublica Senior Editor Jesse Eisinger took to Twitter to claim he had “never seen” something of this nature before.
Lawrence-Hardy is a partner at the law firm Lawrence & Bundy, which employs less than two dozen attorneys. She also has a long history of activist involvement having represented municipalities, non-profits, political candidates, and political parties in legal cases regarding election, voting rights, and political law; this experience includes having represented both Al Gore in his 2000 court case in the Eleventh Circuit and serving as part of President Joe Biden’s electoral recount team in 2020.
This information was revealed after analysis of Ms. Abrams’ federal tax filings from 2019 and 2020, meaning that most recent numbers will not even be included in the current tabulation of the total bill. The true extent of financial payouts will become clearer once tax filings from 2021 and 2022, both years of which the court case against Raffensperger saw most of its action, are released.
