FBI seizure of Georgia ballots reflects pursuit of Trump’s 2020 election grievance

ATLANTA (AP) — In an extraordinary scene this week, FBI agents pulled box trucks up to a warehouse south of Atlanta and drove away with hundreds of boxes containing ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election in Georgia's most populous county.

Fulton County, which votes overwhelmingly Democratic, has been a target of President Donald Trump and his allies since he narrowly lost the presidential election in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has long insisted without evidence that widespread voter fraud in the county cost him victory in the state.

The purpose of Wednesday's search and seizure at the Fulton County elections hub has not been revealed. The warrant itself, which should include a sworn statement from law enforcement agent justifying the operation, is under seal and federal authorities have yet to offer an explanation.

Here's what we know about what happened.

A surprise visit from the feds

Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts got word just after noon Wednesday that federal agents were at the county elections hub. The agents ended up having to leave and come back with a new warrant because they had initially targeted the county elections office when it is the county court clerk who officially has custody of the documents in a secure space at the elections hub, officials said.

County attorneys reviewed the paperwork provided by the agents and advised it would be in the county's best interest to comply with the search, Pitts said. The chairman went to the elections hub, but was kept in the dark about what was happening, he said.

“I was not even allowed where they were,” he said. “I could peek in, but I wasn’t even allowed in the area to see what they were taking.”

Fulton County election board Chair Sherri Allen said she spoke to the agents to try to arrange a way to transfer the documents while keeping copies, but that request was denied. She said she's not sure exactly what was taken.

A warrant cover sheet provided to the county includes a list of items that the agents were seeking. It includes the following documents related to the 2020 general election in the county: all ballots, tabulator tapes from the scanners that tally the votes, electronic ballot images created when the ballots were counted and then recounted, and all voter rolls.

The political backdrop

The search injects the FBI and Justice Department, institutions that historically have made investigative and prosecutorial decisions outside the whims of the White House, into the center of a long-running personal grievance of the president.

It adds to concerns that the Trump administration is leveraging its law enforcement powers in pursuit of the president’s political foes, including by pursuing criminal investigations and even indictments against some of his perceived adversaries.

Though an FBI search like the one in Fulton County requires authorization from a federal magistrate judge, it wasn’t immediately clear what information authorities submitted to demonstrate that they identified probable cause of a crime. Audits, state officials, courts and Trump’s own former attorney general have rejected the idea that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election that could have altered the outcome.

High-profile participants prompt questions

FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey and U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were seen onsite but neither has spoken publicly about the visit.

Gabbard's participation was unusual, given that she is not part of the FBI or federal law enforcement.

She has been central to Trump administration efforts to cast doubt on intelligence community conclusions of Russian interference on Trump’s behalf during his successful 2016 campaign, and her presence may be laying the groundwork for the federal government to try to assert that the 2020 race he lost was somehow tainted by foreign meddling.

Asked to explain why Gabbard was there, a senior administration official said in a statement that she “has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases, and election infrastructure.”

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that if Gabbard believes a foreign intelligence service tried to swing the election she is obligated to inform the intelligence committee.

“Or she is simply attempting to inject the non-partisan intelligence community into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy,” Warner said at a committee hearing Thursday.

The attorney for the government identified on the warrant cover sheet is Thomas Albus, the interim U.S. attorney in the eastern district of Missouri, rather than the U.S. attorney based in Atlanta. The Justice Department has not commented on the case or explained why a Missouri-based prosecutor appears to be leading it.

Reactions split along party lines

Democratic officials condemned the search as an attack on democracy and an attempt at distraction, while Republicans defended it as a justified action to determine the truth.

Many Democrats worried that the Trump administration was trying to sow seeds of chaos and distrust ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

“Once they start investigating Fulton County, they will say they found something suspicious,” Rep. Saira Draper said on the floor of the state House. “It doesn’t have to be real, it just needs to offer a pretextual justification for what will happen next. And what happens next is going to depend on the backbone and integrity of the people in this room.”

State Rep. Victor Anderson, a Republican who chairs the House Governmental Affairs Committee, will have a hand in shaping election legislation this year. He warned against overreaction in a speech before the House.

“I have faith in our justice system,” Anderson said.

“What we see yesterday is being characterized as a raid -- it’s being sensationalized in the media; it’s being sensationalized here in this room,” Anderson said. “What we saw yesterday was the lawful execution of a lawfully obtained federal search warrant that was signed by U.S. magistrate court judge. That’s part of the process.”

Fulton County's checkered past with elections

Fulton County had a history of troubled elections before 2020, with long lines, slow reporting of results and other issues. But the primary that year, with problems exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, was especially disastrous.

As a result, an independent monitor was hired to observe the general election that year as part of an agreement between the county and the State Election Board. He documented “sloppy processes” and “systemic disorganization” but found no evidence of illegality or fraud.

Fulton County’s elections have been closely watched since then. After a performance review found the county had shown marked improvement, the State Election Board voted in 2023 not to take over the county’s elections. And a monitoring team was again present to watch the county's election practices last year and found the election “organized and orderly.”

County leaders have pointed out that a lot has changed in Fulton County since 2020. All of the county election board members are different and most of the elections department leadership has been replaced. New practices and procedures have been implemented, and election operations are now centralized at the hub in Union City instead of being spread across multiple locations.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and David Klepper in Washington and Jeff Amy and Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta contributed.