WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – The FBI searched an election office in Georgia’s Fulton County outside Atlanta on Wednesday, pursuing President Donald Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voting fraud.
The FBI said in a brief emailed statement that its agents executed a warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City, a large, warehouse-like facility opened by Georgia officials in 2023, and called it a “court-authorized law enforcement activity.”
The FBI agents were looking to seize computers and ballots they believed were held at the facility as part of an investigation into possible election interference, a law enforcement official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The search was conducted a week after Trump reiterated during comments in Davos, Switzerland, his longstanding claim that the 2020 voting “was a rigged election.”
“People will soon be prosecuted for what they did,” Trump said in Davos.
FBI Director Kash Patel was appointed to his post by Trump last year.
Joe Biden, a Democrat, won Georgia and defeated Trump, a Republican who was seeking reelection in 2020. Trump returned to the presidency for a second term last year after winning the 2024 election.
Representatives for Fulton County’s election office referred queries to the county’s external affairs office, which did not return a call seeking comment. The U.S. Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The Democratic-leaning county is home to Atlanta, Georgia’s biggest city, and backed Biden by a wide margin in the 2020 election.
PRESSURE FROM TRUMP
Trump unsuccessfully sought to overturn the 2020 election result, pressuring Georgia’s top election official to “find” votes that would allow him to claim victory. Several reviews and a hand audit of ballots confirmed that Biden narrowly won the state.
Earlier this month, Trump asked a Georgia state court for $6.2 million in legal fees he said he spent fighting criminal charges of election interference filed by the county’s chief prosecutor, District Attorney Fani Willis.
The prosecution of Trump by Willis for alleged racketeering foundered after revelations that she had a romantic relationship with one of the lawyers she hired, and the case was dismissed last year. The New York Times reported last year that the U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas for records related to Willis.
Under Trump, the Justice Department has also sued several states, demanding that they turn over large volumes of voter data. States have challenged the demands as an unconstitutional infringement on their authority to manage elections. A few judges have tossed out the lawsuits, most recently this week in Oregon.
A succession of people who have criticized Trump or resisted his agenda have found themselves investigated by the Justice Department, led by Trump appointee Pam Bondi, in the past year.
The department unsuccessfully tried to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who both led previous investigations into Trump. The department also brought charges against former national security adviser John Bolton, a prominent Trump critic, and has opened investigations into nine Democratic lawmakers, a former CIA director and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has resisted Trump’s pressure to rapidly lower interest rates.
(Reporting by Jana Winter, additional reporting by Costas Pitas, Bhargav Acharya, Susan Heavey and Andy Sullivan; writing by Jonathan Allen; editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)
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