atlanta — A federal judge plans to hear arguments Friday on Request by officials In Fulton County, Georgia, the FBI seized ballots and other materials from the 2020 election.
U.S. District Judge J.B. Pauley wrote in the order setting the hearing that the hearing was necessary after the two sides failed to reach an agreement in court-ordered mediation.
the January 28 seizure from storehouse The attack near Atlanta targeted the election center in the most populous county in Georgia, which is inhabited by a Democratic majority and includes most of the city of Atlanta. Fulton County was in Center for unfounded claims by President Donald Trump and his allies That widespread election fraud cost him re-election.
The FBI’s move was one of several actions by the Trump administration that have alarmed Democrats and many election officials who worry it is using law enforcement to pursue the president’s personal grievances. Planning methods of intervention And in this year’s midterm elections, the FBI also She used a subpoena earlier this month For records related to the controversial audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County, Arizona, another hotly contested state. Trump lost that year.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is taking several states to court over this Access to voter data That includes sensitive personal information. Election officials, including some Republicans, said handing over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
Fulton County attorneys argued in a lawsuit that the seizure of their documents was “improper and unwarranted” and showed a “callous disregard” for Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable search and seizure. The Justice Department seeks to “set a precedent that would give the federal government unfettered authority to interfere in the local administration of elections,” they wrote.
Justice Department lawyers argued that preparing a detailed statement and presenting it to a judge “is the exact opposite of callous disregard” for those constitutional rights. “Their goal of disrupting the ongoing federal criminal investigation is clear,” they wrote of Fulton County officials.
The Justice Department said it was investigating “irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the province” and identified two laws that may have been violated. One requires election records to be kept for 22 months, while the other prohibits the purchase, casting, or tabulation of false, fictitious, or fraudulent ballots.
The filing said the FBI was looking into whether Fulton County had properly preserved ballot images; whether some ballots were scanned and counted multiple times; If posted, non-mail-in ballots will be counted as mail-in absentee ballots; and potential irregularities related to tabulation tapes from scanners used to count ballots.
The “deficiencies” or “defects” in the county’s handling of the 2020 election cited in the affidavit are the types of human errors that typically occur without any intentional error and cannot establish probable cause, Fulton County attorneys wrote.
To support their claims, Fulton officials submitted a sworn affidavit from Ryan Macias, an election technology and security expert who advised the county during the 2020 election. He said the affidavit contained “a large number of false or misleading statements and omissions” and offered explanations for the alleged “deficiencies.”
Investigations by the Georgia Secretary of State and independent reviews contradict the report Basic allegations of the testimonyFulton’s lawyers said the case was “riddled with unreliable witness statements, with unusual and undisclosed biases.”
Georgia’s votes in the 2020 presidential race were: Count three timesIncluding once by hand, and every count is confirmed Democrat Joe Biden wins.
Lawyers for the federal government rejected the idea that the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit “intentionally or negligently misled the judge,” writing that “the purported misrepresentations and omissions reported by petitioners are fictitious and/or immaterial.” They also emphasized that the statute of limitations for potential crimes does not negate probable cause.
Justice Department lawyers say they do not believe the records were “properly maintained and preserved,” writing that Fulton County officials “cannot claim genuine interest” in the records because the court clerk had previously sought permission from a judge to destroy them.
The department also noted that a federal judge reviewed the FBI affidavit and signed the search warrant. Fulton County sought to have the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit testify at Friday’s hearing, but the Justice Department objected and a judge sided with the federal government and overturned the subpoena.