by John Solomon at Just the News
With another gubernatorial campaign ahead of her, liberal activist Stacey Abrams saw her latest legal effort to strike down Georgia’s “exact match” ID and citizenship checks for voters hit a major pothole when one of her group’s expert witnesses got blistered in cross-examination in federal court.
Adrienne Jones, a 22-year political science professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was called last Friday by Abrams’ Fair Fight Action Inc. group as an expert witness in the ongoing civil trial against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state officials defending their voter integrity rules.
Jones was immediately put on the defensive by the lawyer representing Raffensperger and the other state officials, forced to admit to penning several incendiary writings.
One was a column where she called for black women to “overthrow” President Donald Trump. Another was an article where she claimed Republicans wanted to create “internment camps” for Americans, according to a trial transcript reviewed by Just the News.
Jones also had to acknowledge she made a political contribution to Sarah Tindall Ghazal, one of the State Election Board members that Abrams’ group has sued in the case. The expert witness wasn’t even aware Ghazal was a defendant.
“You actually contributed to Ms. Ghazal’s past campaign, right?” defense attorney Carey Miller asked at one point.
“I did,” the professor answered.
“And you are aware that Ms. Ghazal is a defendant in this case?” the lawyer asked.
“No,” Jones answered.
Jones contributed a total of $315 to Ghazal’s campaign for state representative in 2020.
Miller’s polite but intense cross-examination was interrupted several times by objections from plaintiff’s lawyers hoping the court would stop it. But U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones declined, saying the lines of questioning were fair game.
“I think Mr. Miller is trying to discredit this witness. … I think he is allowed to do it,” the judge said at one point.
At another point, the judge acknowledged, “I’m assuming he’s offering this trying to show me that, hey, that this witness is biased.”
Jones is presiding over what many see as a high-stakes voting rights bench trial…
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