(AFP) – Officials in Georgia’s Fulton County filed suit Wednesday demanding the FBI return ballots seized as part of a controversial probe sought by US President Donald Trump into his 2020 election loss in the southern state. FBI agents last week raided offices in the county, which includes the heavily Democratic capital Atlanta, removing hundreds of boxes of ballots and other materials related to the 2020 vote. Federal officials have not explained the specific reasoning for the highly unusual seizures, with an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant remaining under seal.
But Trump has relentlessly argued, without evidence, that fraud in the county was behind his loss in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden. Adding to the controversy over the move, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — whose role is focused on foreign threats — was present at the site of the raid. Critics have warned that the Trump administration may somehow utilize the politically charged probe to interfere in the upcoming November midterm elections.
“We will fight using all resources against those who seek to take over our elections, our Constitution itself is at stake in this fight,” Robb Pitts, chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said Wednesday. US elections are administered by individual states, but Trump this week floated the idea of Republicans moving to “nationalize the voting” in certain areas over his unfounded fraud claims.
Pitts told a press conference that he and the county’s election board had filed a motion in federal court seeking “the return of all files from the 2020 election that were confiscated by the FBI last week.” It also seeks to unseal the FBI’s affidavit used to obtain the warrant from a federal magistrate judge. “This case is not only about Fulton County, it’s about elections across Georgia and across the nation,” he said, referencing Trump’s recent comments.
Sherry Allen, chairperson of Fulton County Elections Board, said last week that federal officials had denied her request to make copies of the documents. Trump narrowly lost to Biden in Georgia in 2020 and infamously 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. The Republican president and others were charged in Georgia over their alleged efforts to subvert the election, but the prosecutor became embroiled in scandal and the case was ultimately dismissed in November 2025.
Trump also faced federal charges over his alleged election subversion efforts that led to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol by his supporters. Those charges were dropped after Trump was elected in November 2024.
© 2024 AFP
