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Georgia gubernatorial Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams has repeatedly stated that she does not support defunding the police, but her involvement with multiple left-wing groups and individuals that support anti-police causes tells a different story.
Abrams currently serves as a board member and governor of the Seattle-based Marguerite Casey Foundation, which tweeted #DefundThePolice as recently as March of this year and #AbolishThePolice as recently as February. The foundation hosted an event in early February, titled, “Becoming Abolitionists—A History of Failed Police Reforms & Vision for True Public Safety,” which was moderated by the foundation’s president and CEO, Carmen Rojas.
Rojas, a supporter of the abolitionist movement, donated $7,600 to Abrams’ campaign, the contribution limit for primaries and general elections in Georgia.
“Defund the police,” Rojas declared on April 2021.
“There is no reforming this,” Rojas tweeted on Aug. 4, 2020. “ABOLISH THE POLICE.”
Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is seen ahead of a rally in Reynolds, Georgia as she campaigns against incumbent Governor Brain Kemp (R-GA) on June 4, 2022. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
STACEY ABRAMS SERVES AS BOARD MEMBER, GOVERNOR OF FOUNDATION THAT SUPPORTS #ABOLISHTHEPOLICE
Abrams, who joined the Marguerite Casey Foundation in May 2021, has received at least $52,500 in income from the foundation, according to her financial disclosures. Her campaign previously told Fox News Digital that Abrams does not hold the same views as the foundation, but a press release from the foundation issued weeks after she became one of its governors shows that she supported its expanded anti-police efforts.
The Marguerite Casey Foundation launched the “Answer the Uprising” initiative in late May 2021, which included increased financial support to liberal groups working on law enforcement issues. It also established a coalition with other high-dollar grant-making organizations that provided backing to defund the police groups. The initiative received unanimous backing from its board, including Abrams.
The Marguerite Casey Foundation has also awarded millions of dollars to professors and scholars who advocate abolitionist views. In December, the foundation announced the recipients of the 2021 Freedom Scholars Awards, which gave $250,000 to each of six professors who are “leading research in critical fields including abolitionist, Black, feminist, queer, radical, and anti-colonialist studies.”
Carmen Rojas, the president and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, has donated at least $7,600 to Stacey Abrams’ gubernatorial campaign and has repeatedly called for abolishing police. (YouTube Screenshot/ The Aspen Institute)
One of the recipients, UCLA professor Robin Kelley, previously praised the Palestine Liberation Organization—a U.S.-designated terror group—as “revolutionary combatants” and “models for those of us dedicated to Black liberation and socialism,” the Free Beacon reported.
The Marguerite Casey Foundation has also given grants to left-wing groups that want to defund the police, according to a review of their tax forms.
In 2020, the foundation awarded $250,000 to the Movement for Black Lives, a pro-abolitionist coalition of more than 50 groups, including Black Lives Matter, that believe “prisons, police and all other institutions that inflict violence on Black people must be abolished and replaced by institutions that value and affirm the flourishing of Black lives,” according to its website.
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In 2020, the Marguerite Casey Foundation also gave $200,000 to the Black Organizing Project, which is part of a 13-group committee pushing to defund the Oakland police. That same year, the foundation sent $200,000 to the Louisville Community Bail Fund, which bailed out a Black Lives Matter activist who attempted to assassinate Jewish Democratic mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg in February.
Abrams also previously co-chaired the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund (BVBJ), a racial justice organization that awarded tens of thousands of dollars to activists who want to defund and abolish the police.
The same organization is partially financed by an executive of Alibaba, a Chinese firm that reportedly helped create surveillance technology used against Uyghur Muslims.
Stacey Abrams, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, speaks during a campaign event in Reynolds, Georgia, US, on Saturday, June 4, 2022. (Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Abrams was later named “co-chair emeriti” of the BVBJ after she announced her second gubernatorial run and her picture is still on the website. Her campaign previously told Fox News Digital that she currently has no role in the organization.
Abrams is also releasing a new children’s book this December with illustrator Kitt Thomas, whom Abrams hailed as “wildly talented” after they released their first book, “Stacey’s Extraordinary Words,” in December 2021.
Thomas shared a post during the George Floyd unrest that said, “F— the police.”
“Pigs hugging and kneeling with protesters is a counterinsurgency tactic designed to quell and neutralize rebellion. Do not fall for it,” read an image shared by Thomas on June 2, 2020. “They are kneeling and then shooting, beating, and tear gassing people right after the photo op is done. F— the police.”
Furthermore, the host for a June fundraiser for Abrams, actress Stephanie Beatriz, donated at least $10,000 to the bail fund group Community Justice Exchange, whose mission centers on eliminating prisons and abolishing police.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams speaks to the media during a press conference at the Israel Baptist Church as voters head to the polls during the Georgia primary on May 24, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Abrams also formerly served as the executive director of the Roosevelt Institute’s Southern Economic Advancement Project (SEAP), a liberal think tank that wants to abolish the filibuster and put racial justice at the center of all government policymaking.
“Because our racial disparities are so severe across all elements of the American economy and society, no policy, even if facially race-neutral, is race-neutral in practice,” the Roosevelt Institute said in a report last year. “The design of all policy proposals—big and small—must be attentive to racial outcomes. All policy, from vaccine distribution to higher education funding to tax reform, will have racialized effects. Recognizing this reality, and always considering race in policy design, is therefore vital.”
Abrams was paid at least $708,324 by the organization from 2019 to 2021, according to a financial disclosure statement filed in March.
OVER 100 GEORGIA SHERIFFS CONDEMN STACEY ABRAMS OVER ‘DEFUND THE POLICE’ FOUNDATION’S TIES
During the George Floyd unrest of 2020, Abrams tried to rebrand the “defund” aspect of the defund the police movement as being one in favor of the “reformation and transformation” of law enforcement, instead of the outright abolishment of policing.
“I think we’re being drawn into this false choice idea,” Abrams said in June 2020. “We have to have a transformation of how we view the role of law enforcement, how we view the construct of public safety, and how we invest, not only in the work that we need them to do to protect us, but the work that we need to do to protect and build our communities. And that’s the conversation we’re having: We’ll use different language to describe it, but fundamentally we must have reformation and transformation.”
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Now, Abrams is trying to distance herself from the movement. The campaign has repeatedly told Fox News Digital, “Stacey Abrams does not and never has supported defunding the police.”
Fox News Digital asked the campaign on Monday why Abrams continues to serve on the board of the Marguerite Casey Foundation while also claiming she doesn’t support defunding police, and whether she would be willing to disavow the defund the police and abolitionist movements, but it did not respond.
Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams (L) and Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) (Drew Angerer, Getty Images / Nathan Posner, Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Abrams hit back at her opponent, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, in July after his campaign began running an ad tying her to the defund the police movement. In the ad, Abrams accused Kemp of trying to distract Georgians from her record that, she says, shows she’s actually supported law enforcement throughout her political career.
“Brian Kemp wants you to be afraid of me. Why? Because he thinks it will distract Georgians from the truth,” Abrams says in the ad. “As a legislator, I worked with the [Georgia Bureau of Investigations], with the Sheriff’s Association, and with our police departments to ensure that they had the resources, the training, and the support they needed.”
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“I will support law enforcement. And law enforcement agrees. Brian Kemp wants to bash me for my honesty and lie about my record, but my parents taught me to tell the whole story, and that’s the truth,” she said.
Abrams’ campaign is enjoying massive donations from Democratic mega donors outside the state like billionaire George Soros and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, filings reviewed by Fox News Digital showed.
Fox News’ Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.
