Anonymous money fuels $5 million in attacks on Georgia's Lt. Gov. Burt
Jones
[December 27, 2025]
By JEFF AMY
ATLANTA (AP) — It's the biggest mystery in Georgia politics right now:
Who's paying for the attacks on Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones?
Someone operating under the name “Georgians for Integrity” has dumped
around $5 million into television ads, mailers and texts. The attacks
claim Jones, who already has President Donald Trump's endorsement in his
run for governor next year, has been using his office to enrich himself.
For any Georgian settling down to watch a football game, the ads have
been nearly inescapable since Thanksgiving. They're the opening shot in
the public battle for the Republican nomination that will be settled in
May's primary election. But the ads also show how dark money is
influencing politics not only at the national level but in the states,
with secretive interests dropping big sums seeking to shift public
opinion.
The Jones campaign is hopping mad, threatening legal action against
television stations if they don’t stop airing ads that a lawyer calls
“demonstrably false” and slanderous.
So far, the ads remain on air.
“They want to be anonymous, spend a lot of money, and create a lot of
lies about myself and my family,” Jones told WSB-AM in an interview Dec.
16, calling the ads “fabricated trash.”
Attorney General Chris Carr and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger,
Jones’ top rivals for the Republican nomination, say they are not
involved in the attacks. All three want to succeed Republican Gov. Brian
Kemp, who can’t run again because of term limits. There are also
multiple Democrats vying for the state’s top office.
Dark money marches on
The Georgia Republican Party has filed a complaint with the State Ethics
Commission. The GOP claims the ads violate Georgia’s campaign finance
law against spending on an election without registering and disclosing
donors.
“I think there are far-reaching consequences to allowing this activity
to go forward unchecked,” state Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon
told The Associated Press. “And the consequences are much broader than
the outcome of the May primary.”
It’s a further filtering down of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens
United decision, which led to dramatic increases in independent spending
in U.S. elections, said Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel for the
Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, which seeks to reduce the
influence of money in politics.
“Dark money is becoming more and more the norm in races, up and down the
ballot, and at early times,” Ports said.
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Claims that Jones has been engaged in self-dealing are nothing new
—- Carr has been making similar attacks for months. But things
escalated after Georgians for Integrity was incorporated in Delaware
on Nov. 24, according to that state's corporation records. The
entity identifies itself as a nonprofit social welfare organization
under the federal tax code, a popular way to organize campaign
spending that lets a group hide its donors.
The Jones campaign says the ad falsely leads viewers to believe that
Jones enabled government to take land through eminent domain to help
support his family’s interest in a massive data center development
in Jones’ home county south of Atlanta. As a state senator, Jones
did vote for a 2017 law that opened a narrow exception in Georgia’s
law prohibiting governments from conveying property seized through
condemnation proceedings to private developers. But eminent domain
isn't being used to benefit the $10 billion development that
government filings show could include 11 million square feet (1
million square meters) of data centers.
Group's records are a dead end
Georgians for Integrity lists its local address as a mailbox at an
Atlanta office supply store east on some paperwork submitted to
television stations. A media buyer named Alex Roberts, with a Park
City, Utah, address, is also listed on those papers, but he hasn't
responded to an email from the AP. Neither has Kimberly Land, a
Columbus, Ohio, lawyer listed on incorporation papers. After weeks
of heavy spending, no one has proved who's providing the cash.
The Republican Party contends Georgians for Integrity is an
independent committee under Georgia law. That means it can raise and
spend unlimited sums, but must register before accepting
contributions and must disclose its donors.
But that law identifies such committees as expending “funds either
for the purpose of affecting the outcome of an election for any
elected office or to advocate the election or defeat of any
particular candidate.” And the ads targeting Jones don't ever
identify him as running for governor or mention the 2026 elections,
instead urging viewers to call Jones and “Tell Burt, stop profiting
off taxpayers.”
But McKoon said those are “semantic games” and that regular voters
would definitely think the ads are designed to influence them.
“If you are funding a message that is designed to impact an election
— and I think it strains credulity to argue that that is not the
case here — then you ought to have to comply with the campaign
finance laws that the legislature has seen fit to pass,” McKoon
said.
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