The Republican Governor's Association knows Nathan Deal is in trouble. The Republican candidate for Georgia's Governor is now having to rely on paid RGA spokesmen...from Alabama...who lost in distant third place in the Republican primary for State Agriculture Commissioner. And why is the RGA having to resuscitate this dying campaign? Nathan Deal just isn't even bothering to pretend he has ethics and integrity anymore.
There's a new story out today - there's another ethical and financial scandal involving Nathan Deal. I can't recall there being this many ethical and financial scandals about a Georgia Gubernatorial candidate ever.
What is it this time? Deal's spent 10x the amount of money Roy Barnes has on airplanes...and its going into a company Deal co-owns.
From the AJC and the GA Newspaper Partnership,
Nathan Deal’s campaign for governor has paid a company in which the Republican nominee is a part owner more than $135,000 to lease aircraft — many times more than any other candidate for governor in this campaign cycle.
The AJC takes us on a convoluted journey through the layers trying to protect Deal from this new ethics revelation. It's well worth the read, but in short, Deal's auto junkyard, focus of the Congressional ethics investigation, also owns a company that partly owns a plane and a helicopters. Because every auto junkyard needs a plane.
The arrangement is both complex and unusual in Georgia politics and has led Deal to spend more on airfare than any other gubernatorial candidate since 2002, according to campaign finance reports. It could also pose an ethical problem for Deal if the candidate benefited personally, said Yasha Heidari, a former legal counsel to the State Ethics Commission.
In this case, Deal’s campaign is offsetting expenses his company would otherwise pay.
"It could be argued that the payments ... provide an unlawful or illegal personal benefit," said Heidari, now in private practice in Atlanta.
This latest financial and ethical scandal is already on top of Deal's
Congressional ethical record,
Repeated lying on financial disclosure statements,
Daughter conveniently leaving Deal off bankruptcy filing,
Reliance on out of state campaigners,
Repeated flip flopping on issues that matter to Georgians,
and repeated misleading statements by his campaign.
No Deal Georgia.
You can follow me on twitter @NoDealGeorgia