Outside the Beltway

FBI Raids Georgia Election Center

The big lie of 2020 continues.

Steven L. Taylor · Thursday, January 29, 2026 · 5 comments

The NYT reports: Move to Seize Ballots Thrusts F.B.I. Into Trump’s Election Conspiracy Claim.

F.B.I. agents executed a search warrant on Wednesday for an election center in Fulton County, Ga., seeking to seize ballots in a significant escalation of the administration’s efforts to investigate a jurisdiction that President Trump has continued to criticize over his 2020 defeat in the state.

The move harnesses the investigative power of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. behind baseless claims by Mr. Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election was stolen from him. State and local officials and election experts have repeatedly refuted those assertions.

The search warrant authorized F.B.I. agents to search for all “physical ballots from the 2020 general election” in the county, according to a copy viewed by The New York Times, as well as all ballot images produced by scanning ballots, all voter rolls from that year, and all tabulator tapes, which serve as a kind of voting machine receipt for election results.

This is clearly concerning, as it demonstrates the willingness of Trump and his allies within the federal government to utilize their power to indulge conspiracy theories about elections. Any movement into this area inches us ever closer to potential interference in the 2026 midterms, which would be another significant red line that could be crossed in a move into deeper authoritarianism.

Along these same lines was AG Bondi’s request for voter rolls in Minnesota. See, MS NOW: Minnesota quickly rejects AG Pam Bondi’s request for the state’s voter rolls.

The Georgia warrant demonstrates the administration’s willingness to forgo normal channels and to find willing accomplices as needed.

In an unusual twist, the prosecutor listed on the warrant is not from Georgia, but the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Thomas Albus. It is unclear what would connect prosecutors in Missouri to Mr. Trump’s longstanding complaints about how the 2020 election in Georgia was conducted.

As a general matter, this is clearly using the power of the Justice Department, which has more pressing matters to attend to, to pursue Trump’s personal obsessions.

One of the thoughts that springs to mind about all of this is how utterly stupid it is. If, in fact, the 2020 election in Georgia was stolen, why in the world would the cheaters leave the evidence for anyone to find almost six years later?

There is also the maddening “logic” of conspiracy theorists, who are just, you know, asking questions.

In November, Steve Bannon implored Ed Martin, an official at the Justice Department who has promoted false theories about elections in the past, to send U.S. marshals to Fulton County to claim ballots.

“We have to adjudicate 2020, it’s the railhead of so much of the problem in the country,” Mr. Bannon said on an episode of his podcast, “War Room.” Mr. Martin said that along with Kurt Olsen, a lawyer in the White House, he “and a couple of others” had been working on election integrity, and signaled that Fulton County was in their sights.

“At this point it’s 4.5 years later, they’re fighting to keep them secret,” Mr. Martin said. “The clerk has them, supposedly down the hall, and they won’t let us see them to review them? If they want to prove the election was fine, show it to us. We’ve raised enough serious concerns.”

This is when rational people with memories note that the Georgia outcome in 2020 was highly scrutinized. Indeed, the results were confirmed thrice.

As the AP noted in December of 2020:

Georgia’s top elections official on Monday recertified the state’s election results after a recount requested by President Donald Trump confirmed once again that Democrat Joe Biden won the state, and the governor then recertified the state’s 16 presidential electors.

“We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference at the state Capitol before the results were recertified.

The notion that there are legitimate questions about the outcome is simply absurd and is the kind of thing that either a mentally deficient person would claim, or someone wishing to create public doubt for nefarious purposes (to range from the crass making of a buck all the way up to undermining American democracy).