Georgia Senate Committee Shifts Its Focus To Stacey Abrams And Allies

By Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder

May 12, 2026

A Georgia state senate panel has issued subpoenas to Stacey Abrams and allies over allegations of election law violations during the 2018 election, calling on her to testify at the state Capitol Friday.

Abrams said she will appear before the panel “at a mutually agreeable date,” but in a statement released Monday night, called the hearing a partisan sham aimed at intimidating voting rights advocates.

“It is not lost on me that I am being summoned days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted protections for minority voting power and after I testified against the unconscionable voter suppression process unfolding across several Southern states,” Abrams said. “Building voting power, especially among minority communities, is why I started leading voter registration campaigns in Georgia over 30 years ago, and why we remain so threatening to those currently in office.”

Abrams associates Lauren Groh-Wargo and Nsé Ufot were also called to testify.

The Senate Special Committee on Investigations subpoenas relate to the now-defunct New Georgia Project, an Abrams-founded group aimed at registering voters from underrepresented groups. The group announced its closure in October after the Georgia Ethics Commission charged it a $300,000 fine, the largest for an ethics violation in state history.

The commission determined that the New Georgia Project failed to register as a campaign committee and did not disclose about $4.2 million in contributions and $3.2 million in expenditures.

“The integrity of our political process depends on the faithful enforcement of the law,” said Athens Republican Sen. Bill Cowsert, who chairs the committee and who is on Tuesday’s primary ballot as a candidate for state attorney general.

“The Ethics Commission uncovered what it described as one of the most significant campaign finance violations in state history. Our committee intends to determine who was responsible and whether additional reforms or enforcement mechanisms are necessary to protect the public trust and prevent this from ever happening again.”

Abrams says she had transferred ownership of the New Georgia Project before 2018 and had no connection to the actions connected with the fine. Democrats have characterized the committee as a stage for political show trials.

Abrams indicated her testimony will be confrontational.

“At their hearing, I will offer testimony on the urgent harms facing the right to vote, decry this effort as part of a coordinated scheme to diminish minority voices, and question the insistence on controlling the outcome of elections by diminishing the agency of voters,” she said.

“Georgia Republicans think this spectacle will help them score political points, but they will fail because they underestimate the transparency of their cowardice,” she added.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testified before the committee last year, defending her office and the now-dismissed election fraud case against President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies.

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