FBI agents executed a court-authorized search warrant on Wednesday at a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility, investigating a state that was at the center of voter fraud complaints and election litigation following the 2020 presidential election.
Agents were seen entering the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center at 5600 Campbellton Fairburn Road in southwest Atlanta. The facility, which opened in 2023, was designed to consolidate and streamline the county’s election operations.
“Yes, I can confirm FBI Atlanta is executing a court-authorized law enforcement action at 5600 Campleton Fairburn Rd.,” an FBI Atlanta spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “Our investigation into this matter is ongoing, so there are no details that I can provide at the moment.”
Fulton County officials and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) slammed the FBI’s decision to conduct a warrant on the election facility, accusing President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice of continuing the president’s tirade against alleged election fraud that he has maintained for years, resulting in his 2020 election defeat.
“I suspect today’s raid is a continuation of this sore loser’s crusade, despite repeated audits and independent reviews confirming that Donald Trump was indeed defeated,” Ossoff, who, alongside Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), defeated their GOP opponents in the state’s runoff election in early 2021, said.
Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington arrived at the facility later in the afternoon, describing the FBI raid as a “full frontal attack on democracy.”
“This is a code red in America in Fulton County,” he added.
A warrant issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine M. Salinas authorized agents to search the Office of the Clerk of Court at the Fulton County election facility and to seize records connected to alleged violations of Title 52 of the U.S. Code, including provisions governing the preservation of federal election materials. A copy of the warrant was obtained by ProPublica on Wednesday afternoon.
According to the five-page warrant, federal investigators are seeking all physical ballots from Fulton County’s 2020 general election, including absentee, early voting, provisional, emergency, duplicated, and damaged ballots, as well as ballot envelopes.
It also authorizes the seizure of tabulator tapes from every voting machine used in the county, including opening, closing, and zero tapes, as well as all ballot images generated during the initial count, recount, or any subsequent scanning related to the 2020 election.
In addition, agents are permitted to obtain voter rolls associated with the 2020 election, including records showing to whom absentee ballots were issued, from whom ballots were received, and who voted early or in person.
Federal investigators were also authorized to review both physical and electronic election records and to provide copies of seized digital data to DOJ attorneys and technical experts for further examination.
Fulton County has spawned national election controversies since 2020, when President Donald Trump and his allies raised concerns about ballot handling and election administration in Georgia’s most populous county. Those concerns later became a cornerstone of one of the most aggressive post-election prosecutions brought against Trump.
After Trump left office, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat, pursued a sweeping racketeering case accusing Trump and several allies, accusing them of conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.
The indictment was predicated in part on Trump’s January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Willis alleged Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find” votes to reverse his loss to former President Joe Biden.
That case has since collapsed following months of litigation over whether Willis had a conflict of interest by hiring her romantic partner, Nathan Wade, as special prosecutor. A judge ultimately disqualified Willis from continuing the prosecution, effectively derailing the high-profile case until a new prosecutor took over the case and decided to dismiss it completely.
The FBI search also comes as the Trump administration’s DOJ continues a broader effort to obtain voting records from Georgia as part of a nationwide election integrity review. Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed a DOJ lawsuit seeking access to Georgia’s unredacted voter registration database after ruling the case was filed in the wrong court.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES FULTON COUNTY TO OBTAIN RECORDS RELATED TO 2020 ELECTION
The DOJ has argued it needs the records to assess Georgia’s compliance with federal election law, while state officials have said Georgia law prohibits the release of sensitive voter information. The DOJ has brought similar lawsuits in more than 20 states and previously sued Fulton County over access to ballots and other election records from the 2020 election.
Federal officials have not indicated whether Wednesday’s search is connected to those efforts, to prior election litigation, or to any separate criminal inquiry. Fulton County officials have repeatedly defended the integrity of their election processes and rejected allegations of systemic fraud.
