A newly unsealed affidavit written by an FBI agent details the legal basis for a search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, last month, when investigators seized material related to the 2020 election.
According to the affidavit, the search came as part of an ongoing “FBI criminal investigation into whether any of the improprieties” alleged around the 2020 election in Fulton County “were intentional acts that violated federal criminal laws.” The new document also said that the FBI investigation was initiated following a referral from an attorney who worked to overturn the election results in 2020.
The affidavit listed what the agent said were five “deficiencies or defects” with the 2020 election and the subsequent counting of votes. They include issues with the number of scanned ballot images in Fulton County’s possession, ballots being scanned multiple times during a recount and inconsistencies regarding tallies in an audit of ballots. The affidavit also noted that auditors “reported counting purported absentee ballots that had never been creased or folded, as would be required for the ballot to be mailed to the voter and for the ballot to be returned in the sealed envelope requiring the voter’s signature for authentication.”
State officials in Georgia, including the Republican governor and secretary of state, have defended the integrity of the 2020 election for years, noting that three separate counts confirmed that Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the state. The results in Georgia were at the center of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Fulton County is a key Democratic stronghold.
On Jan. 29, the FBI executed a search warrant at a Fulton County elections office, seeking to take ballots and other records related to the 2020 vote.
Last week, Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts and the county’s Board of Registration and Elections filed an emergency lawsuit to compel the return of over 650 boxes containing the 2020 election-related materials. The county has asked for the “return of all original seized materials” and asked the judge for an order instructing the government “to maintain, but not review, any copies of the seized materials until this matter is resolved.”
On Saturday, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee ordered the court documents in the case to be unsealed by close of business Tuesday, including the county’s motions to return the documents and to unseal the full affidavit supporting the search warrant.
The affidavit said the current investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, who the FBI describes as a “Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity.” In 2020, Olsen was an attorney who worked with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to urge the Supreme Court to overturn the election results.
In 2022, Olsen was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 Committee, which was investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election. The subpoena alleged that Olsen “contacted various high-level officials at the Department of Justice” at the president’s direction to discuss filing challenges to the election results. The committee said Olsen spoke multiple times with Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
The FBI’s search warrant for the raid sought “all physical ballots” from the 2020 election in Fulton County, as well as tapes from vote-tabulating machines, ballot images and voter rolls.
According to the affidavit, the bureau is investigating potential violations of two federal laws. One of those laws makes it a crime for elections officials to intimidate voters and to deprive them of a fair election by submitting fraudulent ballots or voter registration applications. The other law requires election officials to retain federal election records for 22 months.
The search warrant was signed by a federal magistrate judge, which is typical in criminal cases. Authorities must show probable cause to a judge before they sign off on a warrant.
The Justice Department lawyer listed on the search warrant was Thomas Albus, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. On Tuesday morning, Albus formally filed his name on the court docket in Georgia, indicating he will be leading the Justice Department’s court proceedings in the case. It’s unclear why Albus is leading the case, and not a Justice Department attorney from Georgia.
In December, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the Fulton County clerk of courts, asking a judge to force the handover of the 2020 election-related documents. The department alleged that the county had failed to hand over the material before the lawsuit was filed. The county has moved to dismiss the suit, arguing that the Justice Department did not have a legitimate reason to obtain the records.
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the FBI affidavit justifying the search “pretty weak” in an interview on CBS News’ “The Takeout.”
“I was expecting a lot more in here to justify the seizure of election records from an election more than five years ago,” Becker said.
He noted that the affidavit did not allege “election theft,” and did not lay out any foreign connections that would explain why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present for the search.
Becker said the government largely pointed to “some human error on a long night working an election in the middle of a global pandemic, and that error didn’t have any impact on the outcome of the election.”
