Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice and attorney general candidate Jay Mitchell has called for a retraction of accusations from one of his Republican primary opponents, Katherine Robertson, after campaign advertisements he claims are defamatory and false.
Robertson, the current chief counsel in the AG's office, and Mitchell have been engaged in a political tête-à-tête in the battle for the Republican nomination on the May 19 primary. In recent weeks, attacks from both sides have ramped up significantly.
Most recently, Robertson ran a TV ad, accusing Mitchell of having previously served as a registered agent for Uzbekistan while pledging to fight Islamic extremism in the state.
The ad makes several accusations against Mitchell, including that he served as a registered foreign agent of the "Muslim regime of Uzbekistan" in 2007 and personally lobbied then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's office on behalf of the regime.
Mitchell swiftly responded to the accusations, producing evidence that his time practicing law in Uzbekistan was spent defending a political dissident opposing the oppressive regime of the time.
Mitchell's campaign claims he was not working on behalf of the then-dictator, President Islam Karimov. Instead, he claims he was working "to protect pro-democracy reformer Sanjar Umarov, who had been jailed and silenced by President Islam Karimov's brutal communist regime."
In addition to his self-exculpation by correcting the record of his time practicing law in Uzbekistan, Mitchell is now calling for a full retraction of the statement.
"Despite the truth being well documented and widely reported, Robertson's campaign has continued and expanded the ad's dissemination, having already spent at least $410,933 to broadcast it statewide," a release from Mitchell's campaign reads.
In his public letter to Robertson, Mitchell demands an "immediate retraction pursuant to Alabama law." However, he did not indicate whether he would pursue any additional legal action should Robertson decline to do so.
"This ad and Katherine's campaign statements are not just 'politics as usual,' Mitchell said. "They are bald-faced lies. I have provided irrefutable facts and evidence about the matter— both to the press and to my opponent directly—that prove her claims are false. I am calling on Katherine to do the right thing and correct the record."
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