It doesn’t seem to matter to FBI Director Kash Patel that there’s no credible evidence of Fulton County elected officials, employees, or volunteer poll workers tampering with the 2020 election results.
Last week, the embattled Trump appointee reassigned 260 intelligence analysts from FBI field offices across the country to assist with the agency’s ongoing investigation. An internal memo obtained by MS NOW reveals the FBI has made this a priority investigation and authorized overtime pay so intelligence analysts can work on the case during weekends and holidays.
Analysts were given until July 17 for each of them to conduct 708 record checks.
In a statement to Capital B Atlanta, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock called the FBI’s decision to prioritize the Georgia 2020 election investigation a threat to every American and called on Congress to hold the president accountable.
“Let’s be clear: these lies are meant to create the pretext to interfere in this year’s midterm elections,” he said. “They will not stop at Georgia. It will take all of us, in Georgia and all across the country, to show up and demand that our voices be heard this November. We must hold this president accountable.”
When Dana Barrett, Fulton County commissioner for District 3, first heard about the memo, she said her first thought was that Patel would do anything to get back into the good graces of the president.
“My next thought was, what documents are they talking about? This has to be the ballots that they took from the Fulton County Election Hub,” Barrett told Capital B Atlanta.
In January, FBI agents conducted a surprise raid on the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operation Center in Union City seizing 700 boxes of documents including ballots, voter rolls, and tabulation materials.
“Judge [Robert] McBurney had these records under seal,” District 5 Commissioner Marvin Arrington said as the FBI was carrying documents to their cars. “They have filed a lawsuit seeking the exact same records they were denied access in that lawsuit. And because they were denied access in the civil lawsuit, they are now serving a criminal search warrant.”
A week later, Fulton County sued the Justice Department, hoping a judge would force the ballots to be returned. Although the county ultimately lost the case, it was successful in forcing the FBI to unseal the affidavit that was used to justify the search warrant. Once unsealed, the affidavit proved to rely largely on theories of election interference that had been previously debunked.
Fulton Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts condemned the judge’s decision.
“We will continue, as always, to stand by our election workers and the voters of Fulton County. We intend to vigorously pursue all available legal options,” Pitts said in a statement.
Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, who is in charge of overseeing elections, described the raid as an attempt by federal authorities to relive the 2020 elections despite multiple investigations finding no fraud occurred.
On Jan 2, 2021, Trump called Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, and asked him to “find 11,780 votes.” Raffensperger refused. After a third recount, Joe Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes.
Four days later, a violent mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol hoping to overturn the election results by force.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said in a statement to Capital B Atlanta that Trump is focused on Fulton County because he resents that Black voters and Black political power were instrumental in his defeat at the ballot box in 2020.
“This is why we need Federal voting rights legislation when we see the United States Supreme Court dismantling the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act that was passed in [the] 1960s,” Ossoff said.
Based on conversations she’s had with Fulton County’s legal team, Barrett said the county will have to play the waiting game.
Federal officials “haven’t filed charges yet, so all we can do is be prepared for some indictments coming down, and have the legal team in place and ready, should that happen,” she said.
On the state level, she said she hopes Georgia’s next secretary of state works with the legislature to create stronger state laws protecting elections.
“The federal government is going to take precedence,” she acknowledged. “But from a process and procedure standpoint, I certainly think we need to be doing everything we can to have every image and copy that we can of [our] documents.
Earlier this year, Barrett was campaigning to become the next secretary of state. Although she ultimately did not win the Democratic nomination, she continues to champion Fulton County for holding successful and fair elections.
“The way that we can overcome the undermining of elections is with massive turnout,” she said. “So if you’re somebody who stayed out of it or didn’t vote in primaries, this is the time to do your research and get out and vote, because it’s very hard to cheat when the numbers are huge.”
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Staff writer Chauncey Alcorn contributed to this report.
