The FBI’s Rationale Behind the Raid on the Fulton County Elections Office Georgia It was based on dismissed claims from last month’s election detractors and came after a referral from a White House lawyer who sought to overturn the 2020 election, a search warrant affidavit unsealed Tuesday revealed.
The warrant provides the first insight into the basis FBI raid on January 28th at the Fulton County Elections Office. In this raid, FBI officials seized around 700 boxes of election materials.
The FBI’s investigation was “triggered” by a referral from an attorney, Kurt Olsen, who sought to nullify the 2020 election and contacted Justice Department officials to ask them to file a motion with the US Supreme Court to nullify the election. Olsen began working at the White House last year to investigate election integrity issues.
FBI witnesses at trial Include a cadre Conservative activists have been harassing state officials in Fulton County for years, accusing them of wrongdoing. Many of their claims were investigated and denied by state officials.
Other witnesses included two Trump-aligned members of Georgia’s state board of elections, whom Trump publicly praised “Pit bulls” at the rally of 2024. Those two members Janice Johnston and Janelle King, currently married to Georgia Secretary of State candidate Kelvin King.
“Seizure of election records confirms analysis that the election records have been destroyed by counterfeit scanning of certain ballots, natural ballot tampering, or other methods described above, and physically false votes have been tabulated,” wrote Hugh Raymond Evans in a separate FBI affidavit.
Trump lost Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes in 2020, a result that has been certified twice. The false claims are central to his efforts to keep alive the myth that the 2020 election was stolen.
For example, one of the claims in the affidavit appears to come from a citizen investigator named Joe Rossi, who claimed that the number of ballot images for Fulton County did not match the total number of ballots cast. Despite some discrepancies, Georgia did a machine and hand recount of ballots after the 2020 election that confirmed the tally. The state Board of Elections also investigated the lawsuit and sent Fulton County a letter of reprimand in 2024.
The affidavit also cites allegations from activists that the tabulator tapes — the records in each voting machine — showing how many votes were cast for each candidate were not properly maintained. An analyst working in the executive branch reviewed the tapes and determined there were anomalies. A former state elections director told the FBI that all votes were counted during a hand count. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger acknowledged that the tapes for 315,000 ballots were not signed, but described it as an administrative error that did not affect the election. A former state election official also told the FBI that all votes were counted during a hand count.
Another witness, Susan Voyles, told the FBI she worked during the hand count and handled suspiciously “pristine” ballots that appeared to be unfolded and had single votes for candidates. That is part of the charge The suit was dismissed in 2021 In it, Raffensperger’s office said Voyles was unable to identify the batches she observed.
Voyles, a past president of the Georgia chapter of the conservative activist group Eagle Forum, is a 2022 Republican candidate for Congress.
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said: “The affidavit is a complete rehash of the claims that were rejected and dismissed five years ago. Certainly there were administrative errors (as there always are in every election, including states Trump won), but this affidavit also shows that none of them were intentional and that the final count of the actual ballots (paper ballots were not correct) was reached,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
“How an agent signs an affidavit and a magistrate signs a warrant, which confirms there is no proof of intent to commit a federal crime, is difficult to understand,” he added.
In a statement, Raffensperger, now seeking the Republican nomination for governor, said it was time to move on.
“As Secretary of State, I will make Georgia the safest and most secure place to vote. Instead of wasting time and tax dollars trying to change the past with baseless and repackaged claims, let’s focus our efforts on building a safer, more affordable future for all hardworking Georgians,” he said.
Nya for the government in the warrant Defendant Thomas Albus, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. US Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Albus as special counsel to investigate election integrity issues. Bloomberg Law reports.
An unprecedented attack took place Only increased anxiety Donald Trump will seek to intervene in this year’s midterm elections. That concern was heightened when it was revealed that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was involved in the Fulton County raid. Gabbard It is said that Conducting its own investigation separate from that conducted by the Department of Justice.
