Kelly Loeffler Fires Back at Fellow Georgian Brad Raffensperger, Calls for Investigation into 2020 Election

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Former Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) asked Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) in a Wednesday letter to open an investigation into Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R).

Loeffler told Carr she wanted the investigation to look at whether Raffensperger “put his political self-interest ahead of the people of Georgia” in the 2020 election. Raffensperger “politicized and minimized voters’ legitimate concerns about changes to Georgia’s elections which were related to the pandemic and legal settlements, failed to complete investigations and provide timely information, and engaged in political matters during an election,” Loeffler charged.

Raffensperger has been at odds with members of his party over his oversight last year of the electoral process in his state. The conflict led his team to secretly record a conversation with former President Donald Trump in January, and to Georgia’s legislature passing a law that removed Raffensperger from Georgia’s State Election Board.

Loeffler cited a range of issues in her letter as reasons to investigate Raffensperger. Those included his decision to allow ballot “drop boxes” around the state “with some counties having dozens and others having none,” as well as facilitating “mass unsolicited absentee ballot” requests. She also noted he had accepted $5.6 million in funding from the Facebook-tied Center for Election Innovation and Research, and recalled the January recording of Trump.

“We respectfully request an investigation into whether Raffensperger’s actions were lawful and consistent with his fiduciary and statutory obligations to Georgia’s citizenry as a statewide elected official,” Loeffler wrote.

Raffensperger responded by taking aim at Loeffler’s loss in Georgia’s January run-off election, saying in a statement to media that her “failure to convince anyone she actually was a Trump supporter is the reason Georgia doesn’t have a Republican senator or the United States a Republican Senate. The letter and the allegations in it are laughable.”

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, meanwhile, said Carr would decline Loeffler’s request and was forwarding her letter to Raffensperger. “Under the Georgia Constitution, the Department of Law is the lawyer [for the] executive branch of government — which includes the Secretary of State’s Office,” the spokesperson said. “As such, we cannot investigate our own client on these particular matters. We’ve forwarded the letter to our client for their review and appropriate response.”