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WABE’s Week in Review: Georgia In The Spotlight At Impeachment, Unemployment Check Fraud And Microsoft’s New ATL Hub

February 12th, 2021

Georgia took center stage at the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump on Wednesday. Impeachment managers cited Trump’s Jan. 2 phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

“I just wanna find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” said Trump, trying to coax Raffensperger into finding votes to declare him, rather than Joe Biden, the winner of Georgia’s electoral votes.

The impeachment-supporting documents also detail how Trump allegedly pressured former Atlanta-based U.S. Attorney B.J. Pak, who abruptly resigned right after the call to Raffensperger. The documents say Trump demanded Pak’s resignation because he refused to investigate the former president’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

The impeachment managers also cited Trump’s speech in Dalton, Georgia, two days before the Capitol breach.

“And they’re not taking this White House. We’re gonna fight like hell, I’ll tell ya right now,” Trump said.

Georgia is the only state brought up in the article of impeachment against the former president. It is mentioned 50 times in the 50-page supporting document.

Meantime, Fulton County’s district attorney is moving forward with a criminal investigation into that call made by Trump to Georgia officials.

Advocates call for action after WABE report…

Katie Duren and her family who face eviction despite a CDC moratorium — Katie Duren and her family face eviction despite a CDC moratorium. (Stephannie Stokes/WABE)

Civil rights groups are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate courts that ignore the nationwide eviction moratorium. This follows WABE’s Stephannie Stokes’ story about Georgia judges who refuse to acknowledge the federal ban in court.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta issued the moratorium to slow the spread of COVID-19 to protect tenants who are behind on rent from eviction. But in Coweta and Carroll counties, tenants are getting evicted anyway — because judges there say the federal ban doesn’t affect their court.

Now, the ACLU and the National Housing Law Project have sent a letter to the DOJ. It asks the federal agency to intervene. They say the actions of judges, like those in Georgia, heighten the risk to families during the pandemic. The federal government has not commented on the letter.

Unemployment fraud in Georgia…

georgia unemployment — Georgians who received a 1099-G form from the IRS but never filed for unemployment benefits may have been victims of fraud. (The Associated Press)

If you got unemployment payments last year, you will have received a Form 1099-G for your IRS tax filings because unemployment benefits are taxable income. But a number of Georgians are getting these forms even though they never filed for unemployment.

“They took their social security number and filed a claim in their name,” said Georgia Department of Labor spokeswoman Kersha Cartwright to WABE’s Susanna Capelouto. “And some people are not going to know until they get at 1099-G in the mail.”

Cartwright wants victims to report the possible fraud to the state’s labor department through its website.

“There are a couple of other steps they need to take,” Cartwright said. “They need to inform the IRS, [and] they need to make sure they inform their credit card companies.”

This type of fraud is happening all over the country, according to Cartwright.

The push is on to ban the banning of natural gas…

There aren’t any Georgia cities trying to ban new natural gas hookups, but a proposed bill, if it becomes law, would keep this from happening. (The Associated Press)

Georgia lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit local governments from banning natural gas.

Other states, including Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arizona, have passed similar laws recently in response to the increasing number of cities that have banned new gas hookups out of a concern about climate change.

There aren’t any Georgia cities trying to do that now, but the proposed bill, if it becomes law, would keep it from happening.