The commission found that the New Georgia Project and its affiliated New Georgia Project Action Fund illegally did election work for Abrams and others without disclosing their campaign contributions and spending.
The groups' current leadership admitted illegal activity in a consent decree and will pay a $300,000 fine, the largest in state history according to the commission's director, David Emadi.
The commission found that the entities raised $4.2 million and spent $3.2 million to support Abrams and other candidates in the 2018 election cycle.
Abrams stepped down in 2017 and claimed she had no role with the groups thereafter. Warnock, a close Abrams ally and Baptist minister, was listed as the New Georgia Project's CEO on corporate filings in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
The groups repeated the same illegal activity in 2019 when they campaigned to extend public transportation in suburban Gwinnett County, failing to disclose $646,000 in contributions and $174,000 in spending for voter referendum to join the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. The referendum lost.
