FBI searches Georgia election office
ATLANTA — The FBI on Wednesday searched the election office of a Georgia county that has been central to conspiracy theories over President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, acting just one week after the Republican leader predicted prosecutions over a contest he has insisted was tainted by widespread fraud.
The search at Fulton County’s main election facility in Union City sought records related to the 2020 election, county spokesperson Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez said. It appeared to be the most public step by law enforcement to pursue Trump’s claims of a stolen election, grievances rejected time and again by courts, state officials and audits that have found no evidence of fraud that would have altered the outcome.
An FBI spokesperson said agents were “executing a court-authorized law enforcement action” at the county’s main election office in Union City, just south of Atlanta. The spokesperson declined to provide any further information, citing an ongoing matter.
Corbitt-Dominguez said a warrant “sought a number of records related to 2020 elections,” but declined to comment further because the search was still underway.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment.
The president has made Georgia, one of the battleground states he lost in 2020, a central target for his complaints about Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory and memorably pushed its secretary of state to help “find” enough votes to overturn the contest.
Last week, in reference to the 2020 election, he asserted that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.” It was not clear what in particular he was referring to.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That case was dismissed in November after courts barred Willis and her office from pursuing it because of an “appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a prosecutor she had appointed to lead the case.
The Department of Justice last month sued the clerk of the Fulton County superior and magistrate courts in federal court seeking access to documents from the 2020 election in the county. The lawsuit said the department sent a letter to Che Alexander, clerk of the superior and magistrate courts, but that she has failed to produce the requested documents.
Alexander has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
A three-person conservative majority on the State Election Board has repeatedly sought to reopen a case accusing Fulton County of wrongdoing during the 2020 election. It passed a resolution in July seeking assistance from the U.S. attorney general to access voting materials.
The Justice Department sent a letter to the county election board on Oct. 30, citing the federal Civil Rights Act and asking for all records responsive to an October subpoena from the State Election Board. Lawyers for the county election board responded about two weeks later, saying that the records are held by the county court clerk. They also attached a letter the clerk sent to the State Election Board saying that the records are under seal in accordance with state law and can’t be released without a court order.
Information for this article was contributed by Eric Tucker of The Associated Press.
