Investigative Reporter for https://xitter.cf/t.co/XF9vyqqySb
Atlanta, GA
Joined September 2014
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Johnny Edwards retweeted
INVESTIGATION: A Minnesota nonprofit receiving millions in state funding paid its founder and six relatives about $950,000 in 2024, more than a quarter of its spending.
Johnny Edwards retweeted
INVESTIGATION: A D.C. nonprofit received $23.6 million in federal funding over four years despite auditors flagging accounting problems in three of those years.
Auditors found serious internal-control weaknesses in 2022 and 2023, including a request for more federal funds without accounting for $200,000 already received.
Johnny Edwards retweeted
The nonprofit blamed staffing turnover for its accounting weaknesses, while a former finance director said its finance team shrank from five employees to two.
Read the full investigation:
thecentersquare.com/national…
Johnny Edwards retweeted
The Pentagon plans to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, but a Republican state senator is calling for the broadcast to be canceled.
Johnny Edwards retweeted
ALT Atlanta skyline with tall buildings and statue in the foreground.
ALT Text about Georgia DHS spending on a surveillance-equipped vehicle.
GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE AND $1 MILLION CHEVY: The Georgia Department of Human Services, which oversees the state's child welfare agency, paid more than $950,000 for just one Chevrolet Traverse.
The department won't explain why. But documents obtained by @thecentersquare show that most of the cost is apparently is for sophisticated spying equipment that will be used by a unit tasked with rescuing sex-trafficked foster teens.
From the records, it appears Georgia's child protective services has bought a cell-site simulator, a powerful surveillance device normally used by law enforcement that mimics a cell phone tower to track and tap into cell phones remotely.
The purchase raises questions about whether the equipment could violate constitutional rights and the department's authority as a child welfare service.
🧵, and story below ⬇️ /1
An operator of a cell-site simulator can pinpoint phone locations, downgrade their connections to 2G, and potentially listen in on calls and intercept texts, according to Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"Mostly what you can do is track someone down," Quintin told The Center Square. "You would use this for a manhunt, or you would use this to see if somebody is in a specific house before you send in the SWAT team. That sort of thing."
Quintin said the devices can see all phones within a radius ranging from a city block to about a mile.
"The potential for misuse here is staggering," he said. /7
Human Services' chief of staff wouldn't comment on the equipment, nor confirm that it's a cell-site simulator. He said it was an "operational" issue that he couldn't talk about unless a reporter went off the record. The Center Square declined.
So how did we sort this out? Read our story to see how @thecentersquare put documents together that point to a cell-site simulator. /end
thecentersquare.com/georgia/…
Johnny Edwards retweeted
🚨 Claims that youth trans identities have "plummeted" are greatly exaggerated. SEGM's new analysis shows that trans identification on U.S. college campuses reached an all-time high in 2025—a 3,600% increase since 2000. The trend is female-dominated.
Read the Spotlight ⬇️ /1
ILLEGAL VOTING ALLEGED: A longtime Georgia elections data analyst is warning state officials that tens of thousands of potentially illegal ballots could be cast in the coming weeks by people no longer living at their addresses of record, @thecentersquare reports today.
Using Georgia’s voter rolls and National Change of Address data, Mark Davis predicts nearly 31,000 residency violations in the upcoming races for governor and U.S. Senate, with a projected 4,200 of them voting from out of state. The rest would be in state but in a different county.
@MarkDavisGOP has been working with Georgia's election files for four decades and sits on a state Republican Party elections task force. He isn't talking about illegal votes by non-U.S. citizens, convicted felons, dead people, or people registered at bridges. He's talking about registered voters who move out of their counties, fail to update their registrations as state law requires, but then vote anyway at precincts in their old counties, helping decide congressional seats, sheriffs, school boards, city councils and other races that aren't theirs.
🧵, with story link below ⬇️ /1
THIS ISN'T DEFINITIVE PROOF: A Democratic elections official said she's open to a legislative fix, but disagrees the problem is as big as Davis portrays it. Sara Tindall Ghazal, an attorney, voting rights advocate, and the sole Democrat on the State Election Board, said it takes far more than change-of-address records to establish that someone voted illegally.
To prove such widespread illegal voting, every person flagged would have to be individually investigated, Ghazal said.
"You have to have further evidence before depriving somebody of a constitutional right," she told The Center Square.
Davis agrees.
"There’s probable cause to investigate all of these if we had the manpower and the budget, but we don’t," he told @thecentersquare. /7
THE PROPOSED SOLUTION: Here’s what Davis has proposed to the State Election Board: Ask the General Assembly to adopt a similar process to one Arkansas started last year, allowing voters to transfer their voter registration from one county to another as late as Election Day.
Voters who filed change-of-address forms would be flagged at the polls and asked if their address is current. If it’s not, they would be directed to go vote in the correct county or use a provisional ballot, Davis said.
Sara Tindall Ghazal, the lone election board Democrat, told Davis during the meeting that she's willing to help him draft a resolution for the State Election Board to send to the General Assembly.
"I support the legislative fix that Mr. Davis has proposed," Ghazal told @thecentersquare. "But I get very frustrated when the narrative becomes, our elections are not valid and people are committing felonies, when it's a real overstatement and it's a disservice to the public." /end
