Brian Kemp

financial/corruption · 2011-12 to 2018 · Separate from the later Phillips lawsuit over a $500,000 loan, the Georgia Department of Agriculture built a regulatory case against Hart AgStrong, a canola/grain-processing company on whose board Kemp sat and for which he personally guaranteed roughly $10 million in loans. State inspectors found in December 2011 (and again in 2014 and 2016) that AgStrong had issued grain receipts to farmers for more bushels than it actually held in storage, and had sold or disposed of about $275,000 worth of grain without paying the farmers who delivered it. After two 2016 fires destroyed over 160,000 bushels of collateral grain, AgStrong directed the resulting insurance payout to a lender instead of to the affected farmers. On November 15, 2016, AgStrong and the Department of Agriculture signed a consent order imposing a $70,000 fine, which the department suspended to give the company time to repay farmers, while requiring it to submit copies of every check it wrote. By early 2018 the department found AgStrong had already breached that consent order, selling seed to cover a separate loss instead of repaying farmers as required. A department attorney wrote in April 2018 that the company's conduct 'may be a felony' under Georgia law and threatened to revoke its licenses and liquidate its assets, before extending its compliance deadline to December 31, 2018. Contemporaneous reporting found no evidence Kemp was personally involved in AgStrong's day-to-day business decisions, and campaign aides said AgStrong did not tell him about the consent order or its later breach. · $70,000 fine imposed on AgStrong (suspended pending farmer repayment); company later found in breach of the consent order; no criminal charges filed against the company or against Kemp personally; compliance deadline extended to end of 2018

Sources: WRAL · Atlanta Journal-Constitution

financial/corruption · 2017 · Gwinnett County Superior Court (Georgia) · Settled via consent order signed January 8, 2019 and filed January 11, 2019; case administratively dismissed. Settlement terms not disclosed.

Sources: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution · WSB-TV Atlanta

abuse-of-office · 2018-10 · U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (Judge Eleanor L. Ross) · Court granted a preliminary injunction ordering Kemp's office to allow flagged would-be voters (those placed in 'pending' status due to citizenship mismatches under the 'exact match' protocol) to vote upon presenting proof of citizenship to poll managers, affecting roughly 3,141 voters flagged as potential non-citizens.

Sources: The Washington Post · Time

campaign-finance · 2021-2022 · David Perdue, challenging incumbent Governor Kemp in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary, sued over Georgia SB 221, a law Kemp had signed that allowed a leadership committee tied to the sitting governor to raise and spend unlimited campaign funds, while primary opponents remained subject to ordinary contribution limits. On February 7, 2022, U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen (N.D. Ga.) granted a partial preliminary injunction, ruling that the law was antithetical to the First Amendment as applied to the gubernatorial primary because it effectively negated the contribution limit for just one person, Governor Kemp, the incumbent. The order barred the Georgians First Leadership Committee from spending money to support Kemp's campaign during the 2022 primary and any primary runoff. · Preliminary injunction granted against the Kemp-aligned leadership committee, barring it from spending on his behalf during the 2022 primary and runoff; Kemp went on to win the primary and the general election

Sources: Wiley Rein law firm · Georgia Recorder · WRDW