President Trump speaks about Fulton County FBI investigation at Georgia event
In a speech in Georgia, President Trump commented on the FBI’s seizure of ballots in Fulton County.
WASHINGTON, DC â A judge ruled May 6 that the Justice Department can continue to hold 2020 election ballots seized during an FBI raid in January, a victory for President Donald Trump’s administration as it pursues the president’s false claims of widespread voter fraud.
U.S. District Judge JP Bouley, based in Atlanta, denied Fulton County’s request for the original seized materials to be returned. Lawyers for the county had argued that the FBI’s investigation of the county’s election sites relied on incomplete and unreliable evidence and violated U.S. Constitutional protections.
A Fulton County spokesperson did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
This ruling is an unusual victory for the Justice Department in court in an investigation requested by President Trump. This will allow the FBI to continue holding onto more than 600 boxes of 2020 ballots as it pursues a criminal investigation into whether election records were not properly maintained or whether residents of Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, were defrauded of a fair election.
But the investigation still faces major obstacles. Justice Department lawyers have not identified individual targets of investigation and have not disputed prosecutors’ assertion that the statute of limitations appears to have expired for both crimes they are investigating.
The controversy was being closely watched by election officials and experts across the country as President Trump continued to threaten the possibility of federal takeover of some local elections, raising doubts about voting in the November election.
President Trump continues to falsely claim that his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election was the result of widespread fraud, and is deploying U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to review claims about vote harvesting and counting.
Attorneys for the Department of Justice argued that Fulton County did not meet the strict legal standards necessary to secure the return of materials seized during court-sanctioned searches.
During an investigation approved by a federal judge, FBI agents seized original 2020 ballots and other records from a county election center in Union City, Georgia. Officials cited suspected “defects or deficiencies” with the 2020 vote, including some digital images of the ballots being missing and some absentee ballots appearing not folded as required.
The investigation began with a referral from Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who supported President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and was subsequently ordered by the White House to review the vote. Tulsi Gabbard, the Trump administration’s director of national intelligence, joined the raid in an unusual move for an official focused on foreign threats to the United States.
Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold in the state’s hotly contested presidential race, became a hub of conspiracy theories and fraud claims spread by Trump and his allies after the 2020 election. Biden’s large lead in Fulton County was key to flipping Georgia in favor of Democrats. The state returned to the Trump administration in 2024.
Fulton County attorneys argued that the FBI affidavit used to justify the search omitted important context showing that many of the FBI’s claims had previously been investigated and found to be unsubstantiated or false and not the result of intentional misconduct.
At a court hearing in Atlanta in March, an election expert who advised the county on the 2020 election testified that much of the evidence cited in the affidavit appeared to show a misunderstanding of how the election was conducted.
Report by Andrew Gouseward. Edited by Michael Learmonth
