On Wednesday, FBI agents executed a warrant at the Fulton County, Georgia election center to seize ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data, and voter rolls from the 2020 presidential election. The warrant alleged these materials constituted evidence of criminal offenses related to fraudulent ballot procurement, casting, or tabulation. Legal experts, including UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, characterized the action as unprecedented and dangerous, noting that the Georgia 2020 election has been extensively counted, recounted, and investigated with no fraud detected.
Trump has spent years making baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen, specifically targeting Georgia after losing to Joe Biden. He pressured Georgia's secretary of state to "find" enough votes to overturn the result and filed over 60 lawsuits nationwide to overturn the election—all dismissed, including by Trump-appointed judges. In a recent speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump called the 2020 election "rigged" and stated that "people will soon be prosecuted for what they did," establishing clear intent to weaponize federal authority against his political opponents.
The seizure follows a coordinated pressure campaign by state and federal officials aligned with Trump. The Georgia State Election Board—now controlled by Trump-endorsed MAGA members—voted in October 2024 to subpoena 2020 materials. Attorney General Pam Bondi then sent letters to Fulton County demanding records and citing unsubstantiated "anomalies" in vote counting. When Fulton County Clerk Ché Alexander refused, the Department of Justice sued her, ultimately obtaining the warrant executed Wednesday.
Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts stated that ballots had been "safe" under county custody and that the seizure undermined the county's ability to certify election security going forward. Commissioner Mo Ivory, present during the multi-hour removal of boxes by FBI agents in tactical gear, directly attributed the action to Trump's obsession with his 2020 loss and described it as designed to sow doubt about Fulton County's election administration. Fulton County prosecutors have separately pursued racketeering charges related to Trump's election interference efforts.
Derek Clinger, senior counsel at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, called the action "a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration's efforts to expand federal control over our country's historically state-run election infrastructure" and warned it signals federal interference in midterm elections. Hasen stated the warrant "looks like a way to use the might of the federal government to further Trump's voter fraud narratives." County officials announced they would challenge the administration's actions in court.
Given Trump's sustained promotion of election fraud conspiracies and documented pressure on state officials like Rusty Bowers and Brad Raffensperger to overturn legitimate results, federal seizure of election materials fits the classic backsliding playbook: delegitimize the prior election, use state security apparatus to create investigative cover, control the evidence chain, and intimidate officials into compliance. International election observers would recognize this as the security state weaponized to preserve power, not protect it—a fundamental breach of the independence and chain-of-custody safeguards that distinguish democracies from regime-style systems.
(Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-fulton-county-voting-records-search-warrant)
