The Georgia Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission has filed an amended complaint against Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. alleging Davis used “dark” money to fund a campaign bank account that was supposed to be a dormant account.
The complaint filed by the commission does not allege criminal activity, but the financial irregularities related to that bank account could lead to a fine of between $10,000 to $25,000, according to the Georgia statute. Exactly how large the fine would be depends on the number of charges.
The amended complaint, which was filed on Feb. 1, states that in January 2020, Davis filed an affidavit with the elections board stating he would no longer be soliciting contributions for his mayoral campaign. Davis is a two-term mayor and cannot seek another consecutive term as mayor due to term limits.
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His campaign war chest, however, has been in operation since he was first elected in 2014.The affidavit exempted Davis from having to file any further campaign financial disclosures.
As part of filing for the exemption, Davis provided bank records showing his campaign had less than $80 in funds.
However, about the time the affidavit was filed, the bank account surged in deposits from unknown sources. According to the complaint, Davis received $9,275 in contributions between January 2020 and April 2021.
According to Georgia campaign finance law, if contributions exceed $2,500, the exemption affidavit becomes void, and all contributions must be reported. Also, any expenditures over $2,500 must also be reported.
Financial documents attached to the complaint show Davis spent $10,276.39 during the period beginning in late 2019.
The complaint alleges that most of the expenditures appear to be of a personal nature and not “necessary and ordinary campaign expenses.”
The financial statement shows Davis paid for subscriptions to the Washington Post, ESPN+ and the health coaching website Betterme.com. The ledger also shows unspecified payments made through PayPal.
Payments were also made to a mysterious credit card account in the total amount of $2,708. Prior to the filing of the exemption affidavit, Davis never disclosed the existence of a credit card.
The original ethics investigation was instigated by local Republican strategist, David Barbee, who asked the commission to investigate the campaign to move the James Brown Arena to the site of the former Regency Mall. According to Barbee, it looked like the campaign was funded by undocumented or “dark” money.
The investigation showed Davis was involved in the arena campaign, despite his denials, as he was linked to the purchase of billboards through emails. Later, invoices from the Mayor’s Office show that city money was used to pay an Atlanta architectural firm, The Sizemore Group, to create renderings of what a new arena would look like on the former mall site. Those renderings were used on the billboards that appeared in south Augusta just prior to the 2018 non-binding referendum to sell the idea of moving the arena to Regency Mall.
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Voters rejected the bid and voted in favor of keeping the arena downtown.
A second investigation was begun in December 2021 after it was determined that Davis failed to file personal finance statements for the years 2017, 2018 and 2020. When the statements were retroactively filed, the documents appeared to be copies of earlier disclosures.
Other campaign finance forms filed in Davis’ name with the Richmond County Board of Elections contain inconsistencies; the records show that over time, nearly $100,000 simply vanished from the books.
A request was made through Davis’ attorney, Ed Tarver, for comment. No comment has been received.
The mayor has 30 days to respond to the amended complaint.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
