(AFP) – Officials in the US state of Georgia on Thursday slammed the FBI’s search of a local election center at the heart of President Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations of election fraud in 2020, saying it amounted to intimidation. The FBI on Wednesday searched the main election facility in Fulton County, which includes the state capital Atlanta, seeking records related to the 2020 vote. Ballot boxes were seized.
“As you all know by now, yesterday, shortly after noon, until around nine o’clock last night, the FBI made a surprise execution of a criminal search warrant at the Fulton County Elections hub,” County Chairman Rob Pitts told a press conference. “Fulton County has been targeted for years because I stood up to Donald Trump’s big lie, refused to bend to pressure,” Pitts said. “Every audit, every recount, every court ruling has confirmed what we the people of Fulton County already knew: our elections were fair and accurate, and every legal vote was counted,” the official added. “These ongoing efforts are about intimidation and distraction, not facts.”
During the search, federal agents seized a total of 700 boxes, with officials unable to make copies, according to Sherry Allen, chairperson of Fulton County Elections Board. She said election officials themselves had been planning to provide the documents in the coming weeks as part of ongoing legal proceedings and thus saw no need for the raid. “I was allowed in to discuss with them and trying to negotiate a reasonable way to transfer documents and for us to maintain copies, but that wasn’t allowed,” she added. Both Allen and Pitts voiced concerns that the documents could expose personal information and leave election workers vulnerable to pressure.
In 2020, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani accused two Fulton County election workers of rigging the vote, citing a video that showed them passing an object between them — later revealed to be a mint. Giuliani claimed the women, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, were exchanging a USB drive “as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.” In December 2023, a court ordered him to pay $148 million in damages for defamation.
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 2025.
Since taking office a year ago, Trump has taken several 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. Speaking in Davos last week, Trump said the 2020 vote was “a rigged election” and “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”
© 2024 AFP
