Trump Finally Achieves His Ambition To Seize the Voting Machines (Or, at Least, Their 2020 Tabulator Tape)
The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday at an election office near Atlanta in Fulton County, Ga., a location infamous among MAGA conspiracy theorists who have fumed about the 2020 election and beyond. The search was indeed related to the 2020 elections, according to an extensive search warrant that surfaced hours after the raid.
The warrant showed investigators were seeking “all physical ballots from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County; including, but not limited to: mail-in ballots to include envelopes; advance voting ballots; provisional ballots; in-person ballots on Election Day; emergency ballots; damaged or destroyed ballots; duplicate ballots; or any other ballot used to vote. »
It also lists “tabulation tapes for each voting machine used in Fulton County” as well as “all ballot images produced during the initial counting of ballots beginning on November 3, 2020, the recount, and any other ballot images created from the scanning of ballots from the 2020 general election in Fulton County.”
The search warrant also gave agents access to “all voter rolls for the 2020 general election in Fulton County, absentee, early voting, in-person voting, and any other voter lists showing voters: to whom an absentee ballot was issued, from whom an absentee ballot was received, or who participated in early voting or voting on Election Day.”
“This warrant authorizes an examination of electronic storage media and electronically stored information seized or copied pursuant to this warrant in order to locate evidence, fruits and instrumentalities described in this warrant,” it said.
Fulton County, a majority-black county in a red-purple-leaning state, became ground zero for election misinformation and conspiracy theories before and after the 2020 election. Trump and his allies’ various baseless conspiracy theories alleged widespread voter fraud in Fulton County and culminated in President Trump’s now-infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021. During This phone call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory in Georgia. We learned recently that Trump also personally pressed the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives to hold hearings to overturn the election, citing similar, baseless allegations.
In an interview with The New York Times earlier this month, Trump expressed regret for not using the National Guard to seize voting machines during the 2020 election.
News of the FBI raid also comes just days after President Trump declared, once again, that the 2020 election was “rigged” and suggested that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did” during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It also comes after the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court last month against the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Trial Courts seeking access to records related to the 2020 election in Fulton County.
Many efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have focused on Georgia in general and Fulton County in particular, due to a wave of online misinformation spread by Trump allies about how local officials ran the election. Here’s a refresher on some of the biggest conspiracy theories that focused on Fulton County after the 2020 election and the theatrics they inspired.
“Suitcases of ballot papers”
At a Georgia Senate hearing in December 2020, a member of Trump’s legal team presented “evidence” from November 2020 that election workers in Fulton County brought in suitcases of illegal ballots. The “suitcases” were really just the cases used to transport the ballots. And although the rumor was debunked, it quickly went viral and became a talking point for Trump and his allies.
“Ballot dumps”
Trump and his allies have also repeated and continue to repeat the lie that there were massive ballot losses for Joe Biden in purple states in general and Georgia in particular. Again, these “ballot drops” are easily explained – election workers were counting mail-in ballots on election night – but the rumor got out of hand.
“Collection of ballot papers”
There were also rumors of alleged ballot harvesting in Fulton County in 2020. This completely baseless set of allegations came from the Texas-based conservative right-wing conspiracy organization True the Vote, which filed a complaint with Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that it had video proof of ballot harvesting in the county. Of course, this is not the case.
The “perfect” phone call
In January 2021, Trump called Raffensperger to ask him to “find” the votes needed to overturn the election results in Georgia. Biden won Georgia in 2020 by nearly 12,000 votes. During this phone call, Trump peddled all of these lies mentioned above and much more.
—Nicole LaFond and Khaya Himmelman
Threats against lawmakers increased in 2025
On Tuesday, the same day that a man lunged at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) during a town hall and attempted to spray her with an unknown substance using a syringe, the U.S. Capitol Police released a report revealing that threats against lawmakers, their families, staff and the Capitol building as a whole have skyrocketed in 2025.
The Capitol Police’s Threat Assessment Section said the agency reviewed 14,938 communicated statements, behaviors and threats in 2025, up nearly 5,000 from 2024. Threats include all kinds of things, like social media posts and phone calls, as well as direct targeting of specific members of Congress. Threats against lawmakers have increased every year for the past three years.
“While security on Capitol grounds has already improved, we have strengthened our partnerships with law enforcement across the country to keep Members of Congress safe while they are away from the Capitol,” Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan said in a statement released with the report. “We want to ensure that agencies have the resources they need to be able to strengthen protection, which is essential to the democratic process. »
—Nicole LaFond
Trump attacks Indiana lawmakers
Trump is making good on his threats to go after Indiana Republicans who refused to approve his redistricting plan in the state. The Indiana Senate rejected a proposed new map gerrymandering last month — a significant defeat in the administration’s larger assault on gerrymandering in red states across the country.
Prior to this Senate vote, Trump took to Truth Social to intimidate and threaten Indiana Republicans into approving the new maps, posing a threat to any Democratic representation of Indiana in the House of Representatives. Just before the state Senate vote, Trump, in an article for Truth Social, again threatened Republican lawmakers who refused to cave in to pressure from the administration.
According to a NOTUS report, Trump has so far supported three primary opponents of lawmakers who rejected the state’s gerrymandering proposal.
Most notably, Trump has endorsed state Rep. Michelle Davis, who is challenging state Sen. Greg Walker, who has publicly condemned the administration’s gerrymandering campaign.
Earlier this month, Walker also announced he would no longer retire from the Indiana Legislature due to pressure he and his fellow lawmakers have faced regarding redistricting from the Trump administration.
“I’m very concerned when I see Hoosier politics playing a role as a substitute for these national battles,” Walker told the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
—Khaya Himmelman
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