(AFP) – FBI agents conducted a search on Wednesday at an election facility in Georgia in a raid reportedly linked to President Donald Trump’s false claims of 2020 voter fraud. Asked about the operation in Fulton County, an FBI spokesperson told AFP that the bureau was “conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity.”
Fulton County clerk Che Alexander told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that federal agents were retrieving boxes of ballots from a storage warehouse. The newspaper and other US media outlets said the raid was related to Trump’s baseless claims that he defeated Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Speaking in Davos last week, Trump said it was “a rigged election” and “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.” In a post on Truth Social, he specifically said former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two criminal cases against him, should be prosecuted.
Trump was accused by Smith of plotting to overturn the results of the election and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House. Neither case came to trial and Smith, in line with Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president, dropped them both after Trump won the 2024 election. Trump narrowly lost to Biden in Georgia in 2020 and he urged a state election official in a phone call before the tallies were finalized to help him “find 11,780 votes” he needed to win.
Trump and 18 codefendants were charged with racketeering and other offenses in Georgia in 2023 over their alleged efforts to subvert the results of the vote in the southern state. A Georgia judge dismissed the election interference case in November. Since taking office a year ago, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, purging government officials deemed to be disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him, and pulling federal funding from universities.
© 2024 AFP
