Judge: Gov. Kemp Must Answer Questions About Actions As Secretary of State
Gov. Brian Kemp is stepping into his second legislative session as governor and talked to WABE about his legislative priorities and his policy stance on a range of issues.
Elijah Nouvelage / Associated Press
A federal judge is ordering Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to testify in a lawsuit dating back to his time as secretary of state.
Fair Fight Action, the group founded by Kemp’s opponent in the 2018 governor’s race, Stacey Abrams, filed the lawsuit.
District Judge Steve Jones ruled that Kemp must testify, but only on certain topics.
Two of those topics centered on Kemp’s role as chair of the State Election Board. Fair Fight wants to know the process by which complaints brought to the board were handled.
The other topic has to do with statements Kemp made in 2014 and 2018 about the number of voters being registered by Democrats. His 2014 remark specifically mentioned “minority voters.”
The order keeps Fair Fight lawyers from questioning Kemp over the state’s “exact match” policy along with questions about voter removals because it found that Chris Harvey from the secretary of state’s office was an “adequate substitute for Kemp’s appearance.”
It also said Kemp wouldn’t be ordered to testify about a memorandum encouraging polling place closure because, as the judge wrote, “there is no evidence or suggestion that then-Secretary Kemp personally wrote or approved of this memorandum.”
Kemp’s testimony must be done by Jan. 10 and can be no longer than two hours. The governor’s office has not returned a request for comment on the judge’s order.
The judge rejected Fair Fight’s request to depose current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who took over for Kemp after the contentious 2018 gubernatorial election.
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