MARIETTA, Georgia – State Attorney General Chris Carr did not respond when The Georgia Star News asked why he did not mention the topic of election integrity at the “Conversation with the Candidates” event hosted by the Cobb County Republican Women’s Club (CCRWC) on Tuesday.
Despite a request from the emcee and moderator to maintain quiet respect for all candidates, Carr’s introduction received the loudest boos of the night from a portion of the crowd – surpassing the dissent heard from the crowd for Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, later in the evening. Raffensperger was observed walking in late with his wife, Tricia, both of whom were dapperly dressed, minutes before his scheduled appearance after the event’s intermission.
“What’s the most important thing voters need to know about you?” was the first question asked to all the candidates by the moderator of the event, Benita Cotton Orr.
Carr responded, “I’m in my 6th year of serving as attorney general and I’ve tried to do three things: protect lives, protect livelihoods, and protect liberty. The philosophy that I have is it’s my duty as Attorney General to defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution and laws of the state of Georgia to represent the interests of the people of our state.”
Midway through his answer, a few audible chortles could be heard from the crowd.
Immediately after his reply, a crowd member shouted, “election integrity!” which provoked the CCRWC Public Service Commission Chair and emcee of the event, Tricia Pridemore, to interrupt via an off-stage microphone, saying, “I would like to remind you all to please be quiet, and please be respectful of the candidates.”
Onstage, Carr stated that his priority upon re-election is “continue to fight back against Joe Biden and the Biden administration.” Regarding longer-term goals, he elaborated a bit more, rather than make a simple declaration that any Republican would expect a conservative would want to hear in 2022.
“There are four areas. Let’s start with immigration. Just in the past two weeks, we have sued the [Biden] administration to end their repeal of Title 42. I joined my fellow attorney generals from Florida and from Alabama, suing the administration to require them to deport violent criminals. We’ve sued the administration joining a number of my colleagues as it relates to the new asylum rules. We joined years ago to defend the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.”
“Second: energy. I just paid four dollars [for] a gallon of gas. We’re going up to five dollars a gallon of gas. Energy policy is a national security issue and as gas is going up we fought the repeal of the Keystone pipeline. We fought for drilling offshore and onshore.”
When asked about his proudest achievement, Carr cited the rescue of 107 trafficking victims in 2021 as a result of a “one-of-a-kind” prosecutorial unit.
“We’re going to continue to expand our human trafficking prosecutions unit.” Carr stated flatly, a worthy goal given Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport being the waypoint for a $290 million per year illegal business. The busiest airport in the world has been called the human trafficking capital of the United States.
Towards the end of intermission, Carr was spotted posing for pictures with a supporter in the lobby of the historic Strand Theatre. After the picture was taken, The Georgia Star News took the opportunity to ask the incumbent AG, “Mr. Carr, why didn’t you mention anything about election integrity?”
Visibly surprised by the question, Carr turned and walked towards the entrance of the theatre. Before reaching the exit, however, a local Georgia citizen asked the attorney general a similar question. Carr did not directly address the question, instead saying that he was looking forward to receiving her vote in November.
The citizen responded curtly that that would never happen.
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Addison Basurto is a reporter at The Georgia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Addy on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Chris Carr” by Chris Carr and photo “Georgia Capitol” by Autiger CC BY-SA 2.0.
