ATLANTA (AP) — The FBI obtained a search warrant to seize hundreds of boxes of ballots from election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of a criminal investigation into possible 'deficiencies or defects' in the vote count in the 2020 contest lost by President Donald Trump, according to an affidavit unsealed Tuesday.
The affidavit provides the first public justification for an FBI search last month that targeted a county that Trump and allies have long seen as central to their false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. The investigation, based on a referral from a Trump administration official, rests on claims that have long been made by people who assert widespread fraud in the contest even though audits, state officials, courts, and Trump’s own former attorney general have all rejected the idea of widespread problems that could have altered the outcome.
The investigation began with a referral from Kurt Olsen, who served as Trump’s 2020 campaign lawyer when it lost numerous lawsuits challenging the election and now serves as an administration official overseeing the attempt to investigate Trump’s loss, according to the affidavit.
The search of the heavily Democratic county stirred immediate concerns among Democrats that Trump was marshaling the powers of the FBI and Justice Department to pursue retribution over his persistent claims of a stolen election. The affidavit indicates a lack of evidence regarding foreign interference in the 2020 election—an idea long perpetuated by conspiracy theories among some Trump supporters.
Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia by about 11,800 votes in an election overseen by a Republican secretary of state and certified by a Republican governor. Among the 'deficiencies or defects' investigators are assessing is Fulton County’s admission that it does not hold scanned images of all the ballots counted during both the initial count and the recount. Fulton County has acknowledged that some ballots were scanned multiple times during the recount.
If these deficiencies were due to intentional actions, it would constitute a violation of federal law, regardless of whether the failure to retain records impacted the outcome of any specific race, according to the document. The affidavit states that these actions warrant an investigation into whether election records were destroyed or if materially false votes were included.
In response to the search, Fulton County officials sought the return of the materials taken and an unsealing of the sworn statement supporting the search warrant. The search warrant covered various election-related documents, including all ballots, tabulator tapes, and voter rolls from the 2020 election.
Fulton County officials argued that claims of fraudulent election results have been thoroughly examined and consistently refuted, noting that numerous lawsuits, state reviews, and federal investigations have found no evidence of wrongdoing.
