The Attorney General serves as the sole legal counsel to the Executive Branch of state government, does not have a legal conflict in doing so and further is not required to engage other counsel at the direction of a client. The State Election Board is not empowered to direct the Attorney General to conduct an investigation under Title 21 whether on his own or through outside investigators.”

“The Election Code does not empower the Attorney General to act on his own as an investigator beyond the limited context of a referral of a case to the Attorney General for potential criminal prosecution as referenced in OCGA § 21-2-31(5). While this Office has not received a written request, we have become aware of requests directed to this Office by action of the State Election Board (‘SEB’) at its meeting held on August 7, 2024. This opinion is written to officially address the law related to two of those requests. First, the action of the SEB made certain requests related to this Office and the engagement of outside counsel. The SEB directed this Office ‘to seek advice of conflicts counsel to determine who should represent the Board in investigating this matter.'”

“The SEB further directed that this Office provide a report regarding such advice and report to the SEB such that the SEB ‘may hire outside legal counsel and investigators.’ The authority to determine whether to engage and to engage outside counsel rests exclusively with the Attorney General. This Office is not required to engage outside counsel at the direction of a client. Nor is a client of this Office entitled to engage legal counsel on its own without the express approval of the Attorney General,” says Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr in an official opinion.

There’s been a lot of hype around this newly MAGAfied state election board recently, with libs worried that they’re going to fuck around in November if Kamala Harris wins the state. Lawfare’s Anna Bower recently explained that, for now, the hype is just that, and the board has no statutory authority to fuck around. That the Republican AG just told them “Lol, no” when they demanded that he re-investigate the 2020 election should tell inform how much authority they have.