Trump-Backed Perdue Gets Behind Another Big Lie Lawsuit After Launching Georgia Gov Bid

ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 14: Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) addresses the crowd during a campaign rally at Peachtree Dekalb Airport on December 14, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. As early voting begins, Perdue is facing Democrati... ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 14: Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) addresses the crowd during a campaign rally at Peachtree Dekalb Airport on December 14, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. As early voting begins, Perdue is facing Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff in a runoff election. The results of two Georgia Senate races will determine the party that controls the majority in the U.S. Senate. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Fresh off of announcing his campaign for Georgia governor, former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) on Friday doubled down on his push of the Big Lie of a “stolen” 2020 president election by filing a lawsuit over absentee ballots in Fulton County, further signaling that his bid for Georgia governor centers on proving his loyalty to former President Trump.

In his lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Perdue alleges that through unlawful “acts and omissions,” election officials in Fulton County “circumvented the majority vote of the people of the State of Georgia and thereby affected the outcome of the statewide General Election on Nov. 3, 2020 in several races.”

Perdue also takes aim at Fulton County Board of Registration Elections director Richard Barron and his staffers, arguing that they “negligently, grossly negligently or intentionally engaged in and/or permitted multiple unlawful election acts.”

Perdue’s lawsuit comes just days after he launched his challenge against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who has been targeted by Trump for refusing to play along with his election fraud falsehoods. Perdue has made clear that he is centering his campaign around Trump’s bogus claims, telling Axios last week that he wouldn’t have signed off on his state’s 2020 election results if he were governor at the time.

Additionally, Perdue’s lawsuit revives some of the same bogus claims of widespread election fraud in the battleground state that were dismissed in a lawsuit in October. The case, which sought to inspect all 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County, was thrown out after Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing and couldn’t provide that they suffered a specific injury that would give them a right to sue.

This isn’t the first time that Perdue — who received Trump’s endorsement in his challenge against Kemp in the GOP primary — has gotten behind a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results. Prior to his loss to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in the January runoff, Perdue backed the unsuccessful Big Lie lawsuit waged by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton late last year, which aimed to challenge the election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

In his campaign announcement video last week, Perdue insists that his run against Trump punching back Kemp “isn’t personal,” but casted the Georgia governor as someone who “caved” to Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams by refusing to engage with the former president’s unfounded claims of election fraud in the battleground state.

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