FBI executing search order connected with 2020 election at Fulton County elections center

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Information conduct a search of a warehouse that serves as Fulton County’s election center.

The agency confirmed its officers were “executing a court-authorized law enforcement action” at 5600 Campbellton Fairburn Road, the site of the Fulton County Operations Center and Operations Center. Officers wearing camouflage vests were seen entering and exiting the warehouse.

An FBI spokesperson provided no details about the purpose of the search, saying only that its investigation was ongoing. A spokesperson for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said his agency was not involved in the operation.

Fulton County spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said the search at the county’s main election center in Union City focused on records related to the 2020 election, but declined to share details.

The center, which opened in 2023, serves as storage space for election materials and offices for several Fulton County agencies.

Democratic Sen. Josh McLarin told reporters at the scene that an FBI evidence team was loading what he called “700 boxes of ballots” into trucks parked nearby. He expressed concern about what would happen to the ballots once they were removed from the center.

“If they’re able to change the content of those ballots. Then there’s really no way of knowing what happened in 2020,” McLarin said.

Fulton County officials call raid an ‘assault on voters’

At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Fulton County District 4 Councilwoman Mo Ivory called the FBI’s actions a “scare tactic” and an “assault on voters.”

“It’s to sow fear and chaos, something that officials at the national level do every day, and it’s no surprise to us here in Fulton County,” she said.

Fulton City Councilman Marvin S. Arrington said a judge ordered the ballots sealed and a previous lawsuit by the White House to unseal them was dismissed. Now, he said, the FBI was using a criminal search warrant to access the documents.

Arrington had shared a photo of what appeared to be the search warrant signed by a U.S. magistrate judge. The warrant cites two statutes that may have been violated: preservation of election records and fraud by election officials.

“The criminal search warrant is under seal, so we don’t even know who the target of the investigation is,” Arrington said, calling it a “frontal attack on democracy” and “retaliation” by President Trump.

State Rep. Saira Draper said multiple audits and an independent investigation have absolved Fulton County of any allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

“Fulton County is targeted because it is the largest county in Georgia and the seat of Atlanta,” Draper said. “So it doesn’t pass the smell test.”

She said investigators should instead look at Coffee County, a majority-Republican county where there was a voting equipment breach after the election.

County officials say they have a group of attorneys working to determine what they can do next.

Fulton County election operations in national spotlight

Mr. Trump has long made Georgia, one of the battleground states he lost in 2020, a central target of his complaints about the election and memorably implored his then-secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to overturn the vote.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections and Fulton County Clerk of Courts Che Alexander, arguing they failed to comply with a subpoena seeking all “used and spoiled ballots, all ballot stubs, signature envelopes and corresponding digital envelope files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.” The county responded on Jan. 20, requesting that the lawsuit be dismissed.

In May 2024, the Georgia State Board of Elections heard a case that documents for thousands of votes were missing from the 2020 presidential election recount. After a presentation by an attorney and an investigator from the Secretary of State’s office, a response from the county, and a lengthy discussion among board members, the board voted to send a letter of reprimand to Fulton County.

Shortly after this vote, there was a power shift on the board, and the newly consolidated conservative majority sought to reopen the matter. The board’s lone Democrat and the chairman repeatedly objected, arguing that the case was closed and citing several studies that found that while the county’s 2020 election was botched and mismanaged, there was no evidence of intentional wrongdoing.

Senator Jon Ossoff responds to FBI search

U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff released a statement on the search, saying it was an example of Mr. Trump “using federal law enforcement as a reckless instrument of personal power and vengeance.”

“After losing Georgia in 2020, Donald Trump directed state officials to ‘find’ votes to change the outcome, attempted to use the DOJ to overturn it, and spread conspiracy theories that led to the sacking of the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” Ossoff said. “I suspect that today’s raid is a continuation of this sore loser crusade, despite repeated audits and independent reviews confirming that Donald Trump was indeed defeated.”

This is breaking news and will be updated as additional information becomes available. The Associated Press contributed to this report.