Fact Check: Republicans In Georgia Show More Misleading Attack Ads Against Warnock And Ossoff

by

Since then, Republicans have posted some additional misleading ads attacking Democratic candidates, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff alike. Here’s an overview of two of these ads.

Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler has made a concerted effort to portray Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, as “radical” and “dangerous.”

As supposed evidence, Loeffler ads have highlighted short excerpts of a comment Warnock made about “ending mass incarceration” at a conference he held at his church last year.
At least two of the Loeffler ads show Warnock saying, “Someone needs to open the prisons and let our kids go.” At least one of the ads has an even shorter part of the quote, “Someone needs to open the prisons.”

Facts first: All these Loeffler advertisements misleadingly take Warnock’s comment out of context. He advocated the release of people convicted of marijuana offenses in particular, not the general release of people convicted of all kinds of crimes.

In fact, Loeffler’s own campaign posted a video on YouTube in early November that shows Warnock’s comment in context.

This is what he said: “Marijuana is seen as an illegal substance. It is a terrible irony, and we think it is that there are some people in America right now who are becoming billionaires because they sell the same stuff that keeps our children all locked up. “All over America. Where’s the justice? It’s not enough to decriminalize marijuana. Someone has to open the prisons and let our children go.”

Loeffler is free to criticize Warnock for calling for the release of those detained for marijuana offenses. But the ads give the impression that he was calling for some sort of massive amnesty for all detained criminals. He was not.

“Pastor Warnock supports efforts to delete the files of those convicted of non-violent cannabis-related crimes and has worked in the community to help remove files so that Georgians who have served their sentences can seek employment and housing without discrimination” campaign said in an email to CNN.

Ossoff and a Senate Committee

An ad from Republican Senator David Perdue’s campaign claims that Ossoff “could potentially undergo federal investigation” because he initially omitted certain payments from his Senate financial disclosure forms.
Facts first: This claim is very misleading. The supposed basis for the claim that Ossoff could undergo federal investigation is the fact that the Georgia Republican Party sent a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee with a request for an investigation. But any partisan can send a letter to the committee asking for something, and there is currently no evidence that an ethics inquiry is actually being considered. Ossoff archived amended disclosure forms in July that did mention the payments.
The purported source of the ad for the claim that Ossoff could potentially undergo federal investigation is a December 9 Fox News article. But that article only reports that the Georgia GOP has requested an investigation.
“The fact that someone has filed a complaint has no standing at all under the law. It’s just a bare assertion,” said Stanley Brand, a general counsel to the United States House of Representatives in the 1970s and 1980s who has since served numerous public officials. has represented in ethics and criminal matters. “Someone has to take note of that and look at it, and I suspect no one will look at it.”
The committee is known for its reluctance to even take action against the acts of incumbent senators. In this case, it would have to assert its jurisdiction over an alleged issue from before Ossoff took office. Said Brand: “For something as technical and small as what they claim I just don’t see.”
The Georgia Republican Party’s accusation is that in May Ossoff, the CEO of a company that makes investigative films, intentionally failed to disclose payments he received from Hong Kong company PCCW Media – in which a Chinese state-owned company has had a minority. ownership interest – and of Al Jazeera.
However, Ossoff filed amended forms in July detailing these payments, as well as payments from other media companies around the world. His July forms listed payments from 32 media companies, up from 21 in the May revelation.
We make no apologies for May’s omissions, but it is common for senators and candidates to table amendments that disclose information that was not included in the original filings. As Ossoff’s campaign notes, Perdue herself has repeatedly tabled amendments.

The ad uses Ossoff’s review to suggest that he has a “China scandal” in which he claims the Democrat was “paid by the communist Chinese government through a media company.” The ad further insinuates that the payment was suspicious and asked emphatically, “Why did China really Pay Ossoff? ”

There is no evidence to support the ad’s suggestion that the Chinese government paid Ossoff for outrageous reasons. According to Ossoff’s campaign, his company received about $ 1,000 in royalties because Hong Kong media company PCCW broadcast two of its investigations into ISIS war crimes.

We cannot independently confirm the Ossoff Campaign’s explanation of the reason for the payment and the total amount, but neither the Purdue Campaign nor anyone else has provided a credible alternate explanation or alternate figure. And a modest fee for licensing documentaries – to a media businessman, from a media company not largely owned by the government of China – would certainly not be enough to make Ossoff’s portrayal in the ad a suspected front man for China. justify.

Furthermore, the Ossoff campaign says that the payment of about $ 1,000 was actually made to Ossoff’s company, not by the Hong Kong company itself, but by a third party media production and distribution company, Sky Vision, who licensed the studies to the Hong Kong company (as well as to other companies around the world).

The campaign says Ossoff mentioned PCCW himself on his modified disclosure forms because he wanted to be transparent about who was broadcasting his company’s productions. The campaign says transparency is also why it listed PCCW on the forms, even though the payment was below the $ 5,000 threshold that requires reporting.

.Source