Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Monday questioned whether former President Donald Trump is somehow tied to an effort to remove Buckhead from the much larger and crime-plagued city that she oversees.
Bottoms specifically criticized Bill White, who leads the Buckhead City Committee.
According to Tuesday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution, Botttoms said White “is new to Atlanta and was a very big Trump supporter.”
“I think the two are very much related,” Bottoms reportedly said.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Vernon Jones, who declared his candidacy in April to unseat fellow Republican Brian Kemp, said Tuesday that Bottoms’ criticisms weren’t well thought out.
“If you are going to link Bill White to Donald Trump then you need to link him also to Hillary and Bill Clinton because he was a big Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton supporter,” Jones told The Georgia Star News.
“If you are going to link him then link him to both.”
The New York Times in 2018 described White as a longtime backer of left-wing causes, as well as Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
Jones said “Bill White fishes in both ponds.”
“He fished in the Democratic pond, and he fished in the Republican pond. There’s nothing new there,” Jones said.
The Star News asked White for comment. White responded via email.
“Mayor Bottoms will go down as the most ineffective, unqualified, and yes, most dangerous mayor in City of Atlanta history. First, she blamed the former president for the deadly crime spike in Buckhead and the rest of Atlanta. When that didn’t stick, the mayor blamed COVID-19. Then, mayor Bottoms made a final embarrassing swat at Governor [Brian] Kemp for opening Georgia too early,” White said.
“The Buckhead City movement started well before I was asked to be involved in April 2021. Mayor Bottoms announced her decision not to run again in May 2021. If our goal was to get her out, why would we still be working 24/7 for cityhood?”
Atlanta made national headlines this year after FOX News host Tucker Carlson described, in sometimes graphic terms, how crime rates in Buckhead have soared. Carlson also said certain of Atlanta’s politicians incited that violence.
Carlson said Atlanta leaders have made too many inflammatory remarks about Buckhead, which is wealthy. He said district residents have endured that abuse in silence. Buckhead residents account for a fifth of Atlanta’s entire budget, he said.
Carlson said Buckhead residents shouldn’t have to “send huge sums of money to a city that hates them.” He blamed Bottoms for motivating hundreds of Atlanta Police Department officers to exit the force.
– – –
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Vernon Jones” by Vernon Jones. Photo “Keisha Lance Bottoms” by Keisha Lance Bottoms. Background Photo “Buckhead, Georgia” by Kburkha2. CC BY-SA 4.0.
