Confusion swirled outside the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operation Center in Union City on Wednesday as FBI agents executed a search warrant, catching county commissioners and other elected leaders unaware.
According to state Sen. Josh McLaurin, who told Capital B Atlanta he was briefed by a county official, the FBI’s Evidence Response Team showed up to seize 2020 election ballots in conjunction with a warrant. He said he was told the FBI is seizing 700 boxes of election records.
While it is unclear who authorized the warrant, President Donald Trump has long maintained without proof that there was voter fraud during the 2020 election that cost him the state of Georgia.
A spokesperson for the Atlanta office of the FBI told reporters the agency was conducting a “court-ordered activity” at the elections center.
Fulton County Clerk Che Alexander told reporters on the scene that federal agents retrieved boxes of ballots from a warehouse where they were being stored.
“The FBI agents are here to get the 2020 ballots,” Alexander said. “They’re all here — trucks, everything.”
FBI personnel wearing Evidence Response Team logos on their coats were seen entering and leaving the building. Some were pulling rolling bags that appear to be designed to transport documents.
Fulton County Commissioners Dana Barrett and Mo Ivory speculated that Wednesday’s activity was an attempt by Trump to turn media focus away from the protests in Minneapolis, which have escalated in the aftermath of the killing of Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti by U.S. Border Patrol agents last week.
Ivory immediately took to Instagram to post footage of the raid.
“I’m trying to find out everything I can right now,” Ivory said. “I’m preparing to go into a meeting about [the raid].”
McLaurin alleged Atlanta’s local FBI office didn’t know about Wednesday’s raid.
“The local FBI, as far as I’m aware, is not involved, so that tells you everything that you need to know,” he said. “This is an order from on high to try to disrupt Fulton County’s election administration, just because Donald Trump is still mad that he lost the 2020 election.”
Republican commissioner Bob Ellis told Capital B Atlanta via text that he was just learning about the raid and didn’t have any insight on the operation. Commissioner Bridgett Thorne did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. said the warrant executed by the FBI is a criminal warrant, but county officials don’t know who the defendant is.
“This is absolutely crazy,” Arrington said. “A judge has sealed these records. Judge [Robert] McBurney had these record under seal. 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. And who’s the defendant?”
Trump’s Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in December seeking access to Fulton County’s 2020 presidential election electronic ballot images.
State House Rep. Saira Draper suggested the raid may be a pretext to allow the Republican-led State Election Board to take over elections in Georgia’s largest Democratic voter stronghold.
Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021 includes a provision that authorizes the state to overtake specific counties if certain circumstances are met. Republicans already tried and failed to do this in 2021 after the law was passed.
“Now they’re going for another bite at the apple,” Draper said. “That is a very real risk when the Republican run Georgia State government tries to overtake what’s happening in Fulton County and what’s happening with Fulton voters who have elected their representatives to run their elections.”
This is a developing story.
