No federal support, state election officials fear interference
States allege that CISA, a bipartisan federal agency created after the 2016 election to prevent election interference, is being obstructed by the Trump administration.
A federal judge in Georgia has blocked a subpoena from the Department of Justice to collect personal information from poll workers and volunteers for the 2020 Fulton County election, calling it an “unreasonable” request.
The grand jury subpoena was filed in April and immediately met resistance from Fulton County officials, who argued the request was overreach and based on baseless claims of election fraud from six years ago.
President Donald Trump continues to promote a conspiracy that he won Georgia in 2020, even though multiple investigations led by both Democrats and Republicans have failed to find any allegations of fraud. In Georgia, the conspiracy is also being promoted by Rep. Mike Collins, who is currently running for Senate against incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff. Collins recently said in an interview in June that Trump won the 2020 election.
Federal agents raided a Fulton County election site earlier this year and seized hundreds of boxes of ballots and tabulation forms from election workers. County officials are pursuing legal avenues to get the materials returned, which are in various stages of court proceedings.
The FBI has also been ordered to scrutinize the Fulton County investigation, with 260 analysts poring over investigative materials by a July 17 deadline.
Now, U.S. District Judge William Wray has delivered the latest blow to Trump as he continues to focus on Trump and Fulton County.
Judge says the breadth of grand jury subpoena is ‘staggering’
In the court’s decision, filed July 7, the judge called the “broadness” of the April subpoena “staggering.”
In a May 4 motion, Fulton County officials argued that because Fulton County is Georgia’s most populous county and includes much of the Atlanta metropolitan area, the subpoena applies to thousands of employees and volunteers who worked before and after the 2020 election.
Judge Wray said the Justice Department is “undoubtedly under the control of the current president” and is therefore using it to overstep its grand jury subpoena power. He argues that the statute of limitations for the Justice Department to file suit in Fulton County has long passed and that the subpoena is too broad given that it is seeking information months and years after the election.
“Whether you support the president or not, whether you believe the 2020 election was fair or not, you should be concerned about the Department of Justice’s ability to use its grand jury powers to misappropriate personal information for no purpose,” Judge Wray wrote. “…The Department of Justice cannot circumvent the statute of limitations solely on the theory that someone, somewhere, did something illegal in some way.”
The judge also argued that such a large-scale leak of the personal information of poll workers, many of them volunteers, “could have a chilling effect on participation in future elections” for both workers and voters.
“Is there a chance that the poll worker who asked the question will give in?” some evidence? perhaps. “However, the disclosure of the requested information, even if it would not change anything substantively, would seriously harm Fulton County’s interest in recruiting poll workers and other election volunteers in the future, at least during the current administration, which appears focused on making the 2020 election unfair,” Judge Ray wrote.
Warnock says raid is ‘an excuse to interfere’ in midterm elections
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said during a spotlight hearing in February with Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory that the raids and subsequent lawsuits were part of preparations to “rig the rules for the 2026 midterm elections” and interfere again.
Ivory said she was “concerned about the workers” during the January raid.
When Warnock asked Ivory if she was concerned about how the government would handle such sensitive data from Fulton County voters, she answered unequivocally, “Yes.”
“So what we’re seeing is a harbinger of what could happen across the country, with acquisition attempts from many different angles,” Ivory testified. “I’m worried about election workers. They’re regular people who come to work to support their families, and they’re scared to go to work every day.”
White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson told USA TODAY in February that the president is “committed to ensuring that the American people have complete confidence in our election administration, including a fully accurate and up-to-date voter rolls with no errors or illegally registered non-citizen voters.”
Bottoms calls the decision a “victory for democracy”
Keisha Lance Bottoms, who served as Atlanta’s mayor in the 2020 election and is now a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, celebrated the ruling in a statement Tuesday.
“This decision is a victory for democracy and a rebuke of Donald Trump’s latest attempts to intimidate dedicated election officials,” Bottoms said. “Even after Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election forever changed the lives of two Georgia election officials, Rick Jackson chose to work with Trump over the public servants who protected our democracy.”
Jackson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, defeated Georgia’s secretary of state, who oversaw the 2020 election, in the Republican gubernatorial primary and has supported the Justice Department’s investigation into Fulton County throughout the campaign.
“If Fulton County tried half as hard to clean up its voter rolls as it does to keep the truth in the dark, people might actually trust the system,” Jackson wrote in a post to X following Fulton County’s motion to block the subpoena.
Eileen Wright covers Georgia politics and elections as an Atlanta Connect reporter for USA TODAY’s Deep South Connect team. X Find her at @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.
