New Report: Mystery Ad Exposing Burt Jones’ Ethics Scandal Ramps Up Nasty GA GOP Primary

New Report: Mystery Ad Exposing Burt Jones' Ethics Scandal Ramps Up Nasty GA GOP Primary

Georgia's Republican primary just keeps getting messier and more chaotic.

A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution report today highlights the latest shake-up in the primary. A mystery group is now spending nearly one million dollars attacking Burt Jones for his long history of enriching himself in office and accusing Jones of running for higher office to line his pockets.

As the AJC reports, the origins of the ad are "so thoroughly concealed" that Jones' opponents, Chris Carr and Brad Raffensperger, are both "insist[ing] they're not involved" and "point[ing] fingers at each other" - the latest attack in an already nasty primary. Jones' campaign is hitting back, accusing his opponents of funding the ad and casting doubt on their allegiances to Donald Trump.

The ad goes after Jones for changing hospital rules to enrich his family and for ballooning his net worth while in office - an attack that Carr has been making for months. Recent reporting reveals that Jones and his family are set for a big pay day from the construction of 13 "mammoth" data centers on a hospital that was made possible by a law Jones himself pushed for, despite concerns from the local community over how much water and electricity it will use.

Read more from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the finger-pointing and mudslinging in Georgia's GOP primary:

• A group called Georgians for Integrity spent roughly $1 million on a 30-second ad attacking Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the early front-runner among Republicans in the race for governor. But the intrigue is less about the content of the ad than who paid for it.

• Whoever is behind this has covered their tracks remarkably well. The paper trail appears to wind from Delaware to Utah to a post office box in Atlanta. One campaign finance expert told us she's never seen the roots of an ad so thoroughly concealed.

• We've cast a wide net and still can't figure out who did it. The campaigns of Jones' top Republican rivals - Attorney General Chris Carr and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger - both insist they're not involved. Their allies have both pointed fingers at each other. Some others have speculated about deep-pocketed outside donors stepping in.

• The ad accuses Jones of leveraging his office for personal gain, a charge he's flatly rejected. Jones' camp brushed off the ad's timing, which lands just as many voters tune out for the holidays. His spokeswoman Kayla Lott blamed both rivals for "throwing Hail Marys."

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