Williams short on details in attack on rival in Georgia governor’s race

State Sen. Michel Williams, right, leveled charges at a fellow Republican running for governor, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, during a press conference Thursday. But Williams (shown with former state Sen. Mike Crane) offered nothing that could be verified to back up his statement that Cagle sabotaged Williams’ legislation to boost pay for police. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

State Sen. Michel Williams, right, leveled charges at a fellow Republican running for governor, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, during a press conference Thursday. But Williams (shown with former state Sen. Mike Crane) offered nothing that could be verified to back up his statement that Cagle sabotaged Williams’ legislation to boost pay for police. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM

Republican Michael Williams vowed his press conference at the Georgia statehouse would release a trove of new and “corroborating” details about the front-runner in the race for governor. Instead, he used the event to blast Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle with no proof to back up his claims.

With a handful of reporters and a few supporters watching on, the state senator accused Cagle of thwarting his proposal to boost pay for police. And he again asserted that Cagle and his allies offered him a plum position to drop his campaign.

Pressed after his roughly 7-minute speech about delivering the promised evidence, Williams came up empty.

At one point, Williams said the fact that he could only persuade two other GOP senators to co-sponsor his police-pay legislation was proof of Cagle’s interference, saying he based that on “comments they made to me.” He would say nothing else.

When asked for verifiable details about his claim that he was offered a powerful committee chairmanship to back out of the governor’s race, he repeatedly refused to comment.

“In time,” he said, adding: “We have a very long race ahead of us.”

Williams is centering his campaign on his loyalty to President Donald Trump — he was the first state elected official in Georgia to endorse his candidacy — and he’s tried to steal a page from Trump’s playbook with one headline-grabbing accusation after another.

Williams has also made a string of blunders, including a much-distributed picture he took in June with a controversial militia and a rocky interview with CNN where he struggled to answer questions about GOP health care legislation.

Though he’s run an in-your-face campaign, Williams is no fringe candidate. He’s twice been elected to a state Senate seat in conservative Forsyth County, and he’s already pumped $1 million of his own fortune into the campaign to bolster the paltry $50,000 he’s raised.

The event Thursday touched on an early flash point in the governor’s race. Cagle said last week that he was exploring the idea of setting a new minimum wage for police officers, months after Williams pushed a similar proposal that failed to gain traction.

But the circuslike spectacle of the event — Cagle staffers briefly considered hiring clowns to interrupt the press conference — evoked memories of the last time a GOP candidate for governor advertised a "major" press conference outside his top rival's office. 

Former Dalton Mayor David Pennington's 2014 event, just a few feet from Gov. Nathan Deal's second-floor statehouse office, featured a hand-lettered sign, snickering Deal staffers and a made-for-TV interruption from the governor's attorney — who ended up speaking longer than Pennington.

Thursday’s event delivered a similar scene: a small group of reporters flanked by a wider ring of Capitol staffers and campaign deputies curious about Williams’ threat to unleash Cagle’s “previously undisclosed actions.”

After it ended, as Williams quickly disappeared and head-shaking staffers returned to their offices, state Sen. Renee Unterman stayed behind. In unsparing terms, she accused Williams of running a “fraudulent” campaign and of playing bait-and-switch with overhyped promises.

“He wants to lead the voters on and the media on,” said Unterman, who backs Cagle. “It’s fluff. And it’s not very good fluff.”