Fulton County Battles FBI in Court Over Seized 2020 Election Materials

Officials in Georgia's Fulton County are demanding the FBI return ballots and election materials seized from a warehouse in January. A federal judge will hear arguments Friday after court-ordered mediation between the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments Friday regarding Fulton County officials’ demand that the FBI return confiscated ballots and election materials from the 2020 presidential race.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee indicated in a scheduling document that the hearing became necessary after both parties were unable to reach a settlement during court-mandated mediation.

The January 28 confiscation from a storage facility near Atlanta focused on the election center in Georgia’s largest county, which leans heavily Democratic and encompasses most of Atlanta. Fulton County has been the focal point of unsubstantiated allegations by President Donald Trump and his supporters claiming extensive election fraud led to his defeat.

The FBI’s action represents one of multiple moves by the Trump administration that have concerned Democrats and numerous election administrators who worry it is leveraging law enforcement to advance the president’s personal complaints and preparing methods to disrupt this year’s midterm contests. The FBI also employed a subpoena this month to acquire documents connected to a disputed review of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona’s Maricopa County, another competitive state Trump lost.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is battling multiple states in court for access to voting records containing sensitive personal details. Election administrators, including some Republicans, have stated that providing such information would breach state and federal privacy regulations.

Fulton County attorneys contended in a court document that seizing their records was “improper and unjustified” and shows “callous disregard” for Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Justice Department aims to “set a precedent that would grant the federal government unchecked power to interfere with the local administration of elections,” they stated.

Justice Department lawyers countered that creating a comprehensive affidavit and submitting it to a judge “is the exact opposite of ‘callous disregard'” for those constitutional protections. “Their goal to disrupt an ongoing federal criminal investigation is clear,” they responded regarding Fulton County officials.

The Justice Department indicated it is examining “irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the County” and identified two statutes that may have been broken. One mandates election records be preserved for 22 months, while another forbids obtaining, casting or counting false, fictitious or fraudulent ballots.

The document stated the FBI is investigating whether Fulton County adequately preserved ballot images; whether certain ballots were scanned and tallied multiple times; whether unfolded, unmailed ballots were counted as mail-in absentee votes; and possible irregularities involving tabulator tapes from scanning machines used to count ballots.

Fulton County’s attorneys stated that the “deficiencies” or “defects” in the county’s 2020 election management mentioned in the affidavit represent typical human mistakes that frequently happen without deliberate misconduct and cannot establish probable cause.

To bolster their arguments, Fulton officials provided a sworn statement from Ryan Macias, an election technology and security specialist who counseled the county during the 2020 election. He stated the affidavit includes “a multitude of false or misleading statements and omissions” and provided explanations for the alleged “deficiencies.”

Reviews by the Georgia secretary of state and independent examinations contradict the primary claims of the affidavit, which is “rife with statements from witnesses lacking credibility, with extraordinary and undisclosed biases,” Fulton’s attorneys maintained.

Georgia’s ballots in the 2020 presidential contest were tallied three times, including once manually, and each recount confirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

Federal government attorneys dismissed the notion that the FBI agent who prepared the affidavit “intentionally or recklessly misled” the judge, stating that “the supposed misrepresentations and omissions flagged by Petitioners are illusory and/or immaterial.” They also claimed that expiration of the statute of limitations on potential crimes does not eliminate probable cause.

Justice Department lawyers contend they don’t believe the documents were “properly retained and preserved” and noted that Fulton County officials “can hardly claim a meaningful interest” in the records since the clerk of courts previously requested judicial permission to destroy them.

The department also emphasized that a federal magistrate judge examined the FBI affidavit and approved the search warrant. Fulton County attempted to have the FBI agent who prepared the affidavit appear at Friday’s hearing, but the Justice Department opposed this and the judge supported the federal government and dismissed the subpoena.