A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the FBI from returning more than 600 boxes of 2020 general election ballots seized from an election site in Fulton County, Georgia, this year.
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In a 68-page order, U.S. District Judge J.P. Bouley said there was not enough evidence to prove that the rights of county employees, a legal standard in the case, were “callously ignored.” The court ruled that the county had not demonstrated a need for the ballots or would be irreparably harmed without them.
At the same time, Bouley criticized how the FBI obtained ballots in states that President Donald Trump falsely claimed he won in 2020.
“This court recognizes that the events leading up to this case are in many ways unprecedented,” Bouley wrote, later adding, “The foreclosure of this case was certainly not perfect.”
Fulton County Commission Chairman Rob Pitts responded to the ruling by saying the county intends to “pursue all available legal options.”
“I certainly agree with the court’s opinion that the FBI’s warrant is ‘flawed,’ ‘problematic,’ and ‘troubling,’ and that this case is ‘unprecedented,'” Pitts said in a statement. “However, we strongly disagree with the judge’s denial of the Fulton County FBI’s request for the return of election records that were wrongfully seized on January 28.”
The FBI claimed it was investigating “fraud” in the 2020 Fulton County election. An affidavit that is part of the search warrant granted to seize the ballots states that the seizure focused on alleged problems such as missing ballot images and duplicate ballots.
Fulton County sued the federal government in February over the seizure. A leading election expert told a court last month that the evidence the FBI used to justify its actions “doesn’t make sense,” saying the voting fraud the agency identified did not constitute a crime and that the witnesses the federal government relied on in its investigation appeared to have been misinformed.
Under a grand jury subpoena released Monday, the Department of Justice seeks to force Fulton County to release the names and contact information of election workers and volunteers who worked during the 2020 presidential election.
After the election, Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Fulton County was also at the center of an election interference case involving charges against Trump and more than a dozen of his supporters, who have denied any wrongdoing. Charges in the case were dropped by prosecutors who took over the investigation after District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified on conflict of interest charges.
