The Covington News received the following op-ed from 10th Congressional District candidate Ryan Millsap.

Liberal activists and those who are afraid of our growing grassroots movement are attempting to label me as a racist and an antisemite, a tactic as old as time in American politics.

My opponent’s political PAC is now sending mailers to thousands of homes across Georgia’s 10th District repeating these same false claims, and I want voters to know the truth.  

This is what happens when they cannot challenge you on the issues. They try to destroy you personally.

That is exactly what is happening here.

Let’s be clear. The effort to brand me a racist and an antisemite is not honest journalism. It is a political and ideological hit job designed to damage my name, distort my character, and weaponize selectively presented material to create a false public narrative.  

The people behind this story were never interested in the truth. If they had been, they would have investigated the full context, examined the motives of their sources, and spoken to the many people in the Black and Jewish communities who have known me for years. They did none of that.

Instead, they built a smear out of documents not related to me, omission, and insinuation.

The timing and context were no accident.

For years, I have been in open conflict with radical left wing forces in DeKalb County, including Antifa aligned trespassers who occupied my property near the area known as Cop City. These were not peaceful neighbors. They unlawfully occupied private land, built encampments, and operated in a broader campaign of intimidation directed at law enforcement, private property, and anyone who stood in their way.  

When I fought back and demanded my property rights be respected, I became a target.

That is the backdrop the activist press had no interest in explaining because it would have undermined the narrative they wanted to sell.

Here is what actually happened

Materials containing more than 30,000 alleged private texts and emails surfaced in a court filing from litigation I was not a party to.

I did not file those materials. I did not approve them, review them, or authenticate them. No court has verified that the information contained in those filings is true, complete, or accurate or in any way actually connected to me.

I do not authenticate those materials, and there is no reliable basis to conclude the alleged messages are authentic, accurate, or unaltered.  

That should have been the starting point for any honest reporter.

Instead, it was ignored.

A source with a clear motive

The apparent source of these materials was not neutral. It appears to trace back to a former attorney who was involved in separate litigation and who has been found liable for breaching fiduciary duties against me and now owes me a multi million dollar court judgment exceeding $5MM.  

That matters.

Because it raises obvious questions about credibility and motive, questions any serious journalist should have investigated before publishing.

Instead, communications were presented that have no connection to me, but claim connection to me via a disgraced attorney who owes me millions.

That is not reporting.

That is character assassination.

What they didn’t want you to know

They did not examine the credibility of the source.

 They did not investigate the legal background.

They did not seek out people who actually know me.

They did not want truth. They wanted a headline.

This is how activist media works. They decide on the villain first, then reverse engineer a story to fit that conclusion.

Borrowing the left’s playbook

And now, incredibly, my own Republican opponent has chosen to borrow that same playbook.

Instead of running on achievement, vision, or leadership, he is amplifying a narrative created by the activist left.l because he is a weaker, inexperienced 30 year old candidate who has never done anything but be a grifter politician.

That is not courage. That is not principle.

That is weakness.

A real conservative would reject a politically motivated smear even if it were convenient. But career politicians will say whatever they think helps them win.

Voters deserve better than that.

The truth

I have spent my life building businesses, creating jobs, and supporting communities.

My wife is Jewish, and many of our closest relationships are within the Jewish community.  

The people who know me best know exactly who I am.

They know I am not the caricature these attacks attempt to create. They know this narrative is false.

Final word

What happened here should concern everyone.

Because if this can be done to me, it can be done to anyone.

All it takes is one conflicted source, one outlet willing to ignore key facts, and one politician willing to repeat the claim.

I reject these smears completely.

I reject the people who manufactured them.

I reject the activists and media operatives who amplified them.

And I reject any Republican who thinks repeating left wing attacks is a path to victory.

The truth is bigger than their smear.

And I trust the people of Georgia’s 10th District to see through it. We must reject the career politician machine and take back the power from these lying abusers of power like the Nepo Baby Young Gaines.