A Lieutenant Governor’s Ex-Staffer Just Got Charged With Impersonating Him

The former director of operations for Georgia’s No. 2 elected official allegedly impersonated her boss in emails to get information on her own divorce. 

Beth Green, who worked for Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan from the beginning of his term in January 2019 until this July, turned herself in this week and was charged with computer trespassing, invasion of privacy, and impersonating a public employee—all felonies, according to an arrest warrant obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

Green, 49, is accused by the Paulding County Sheriff of taking her state-issued computer out of the office this summer and using it to send seven emails pretending she was Duncan. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she was allegedly trying to get information about her divorce out of her own attorney. Green’s husband filed for divorce in April and the separation was finalized in September, the Journal-Constitution reported.

The most serious charges, computer invasion of privacy and computer trespassing, each carry a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. Green was released on a $10,000 bond Monday. 

“The office of the lieutenant governor has been notified of the arrest of a former employee,” Duncan’s chief of staff, Macy McFall, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Staff members will continue to cooperate with law enforcement authorities as the investigation of these incidents moves forward.”

Duncan shot into the national spotlight last year after he became one of earliest elected Republicans to unequivocally say Donald Trump lost the election. In response, Trump repeatedly criticized him, as well as other Republicans in Georgia who didn’t back him.

“Governor @BrianKempGA and his puppet @GeoffDuncanGA, together with the Secretary of State of Georgia, are very slow on Signature Verification, and won’t allow Fulton County to be examined,” Trump said in a tweet last December, prior to his ban from the platform. “What are these RINOS hiding? We will easily win Presidential State race.”

Duncan announced in May he wouldn’t seek reelection and would instead focus his energy on a group dedicated to “healing and rebuilding a Republican Party that is damaged but not destroyed.” 

In September, he published a book titled GOP 2.0: How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America’s Conservative Party, which its publisher says is “both a book and a movement that unites people around a common view of civility and freedom.”