Ambassador Kelly Degnan: It was a very informative meeting for me. It’s very important to have a conversation with the public defender and find out what they’re working on. They’re such an essential part of a strong democracy to have a public defender’s office out there defending the human rights of all the people of Georgia, working to keep transparency, accountability, and democracy strong here. I was very sorry to hear that there have been some attacks against the PDO. That kind of hate speech is toxic language, especially against an office that is serving the public in such an important way and trying to help every person in Georgia have their human rights respected. The Public Defender’s Office also plays such an important role in holding public officials accountable, and that is again something that Georgia needs to do more of: more accountability, more transparency and less hate speech and vicious attacks against others. Again it was a very informative and useful meeting.