FBI searches election office after Trump’s fraud claims
The FBI searched an election office outside Atlanta, Georgia, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.
The FBI said in a brief statement that its agents executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Center and Operations Center in Union City, a large, warehouse-like facility opened by Georgia authorities in 2023, calling it “court-approved law enforcement activity.”
The order “seeks a number of records related to the 2020 election,” the Fulton County government said in a brief statement.
FBI agents plan to seize computers and ballots they believe are held at the facility as part of an investigation into possible election interference, a law enforcement official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The search comes a week after Trump repeated his long-standing and debunked claim that the 2020 vote “was a rigged election” during comments in Davos, Switzerland.
“People will soon be judged for their actions,” Trump said in Davos.
FBI director Kash Patel was appointed to his position by Trump in 2025.
Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia and defeated Republican Trump, who is seeking re-election in 2020. Trump returns to the presidency for a second term in 2025 after winning the 2024 election.
The Trump administration also launched a lawsuit in December to seize Fulton County’s 2020 ballots.
In the lawsuit, the administration said the ballots and other records sought were in the custody of Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta. It was not clear where the ballots were stored.
The administration asked a federal judge to order Fulton County court clerk Che Alexander to turn over “physical ballots, stubs, and absentee ballots for the 2020 General Election.”
In January, Alexander asked the court to dismiss the case, stating that the ballots in his possession were sealed under state law and that the administration should instead seek an order from the county Supreme Court to seal the ballots. Alexander did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Democratic-leaning county is home to Georgia’s largest city, Atlanta, and supported Biden by a wide margin in the 2020 election.
Trump unsuccessfully tried to overturn the 2020 election result by pressuring Georgia’s top election official to “find” the votes that would allow him to declare victory.
Various audits and hand examination of ballots confirmed that Biden narrowly won the state.
Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis filed an indictment in 2023 against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
That case was dismissed in November after courts barred Willis and his office from pursuing the case because of the “appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship with the prosecutor he hired to prosecute the case.
During the Trump administration, the Justice Department sued several states, as well as Georgia, demanding they turn over large volumes of voter data.
States objected to the requests as an unconstitutional violation of their authority to administer elections. Several judges have thrown out the cases, most recently in Oregon this week.
A number of people who criticized Trump or resisted his agenda were investigated last year by the Justice Department, led by Trump appointee Pam Bondi.
The department unsuccessfully attempted to sue former FBI director James Comey and New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who led previous investigations into Trump.
It also brought charges against former national security adviser John Bolton, a leading critic of Trump, and launched an investigation into nine Democratic lawmakers, former CIA director and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, who resisted pressure from Trump to rapidly cut interest rates.
with AP
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