In Georgia, Fulton County officials are taking the federal government to court demanding the return of 700 boxes of 2020 election ballots and records the FBI hauled off last week. County leaders are calling it a serious legal assault and a political fishing expedition by the Trump administration .
On Jan. 28, agents with a federal search warrant blew through the Fulton County Elections Hub in Union City, loading truck after truck with physical ballots, tabulator tapes, electronic ballot images and voter rolls — all tied to the 2020 race Donald Trump false claims was stolen from him.
In response, Fulton County filed a sealed federal motion under Rule 41(g) demanding the return of every last document and ballot taken by the FBI. They also want the affidavit behind the search warrant unsealed — because right now nobody in Georgia knows what the government is actually investigating.
“We cannot verify that we’ve received everything back because there was no chain‑of‑custody inventory taken at the time the records were seized,” Fulton Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. said bluntly, lambasting the way the FBI executed the warrant. That’s not legalese — that’s fundamental forensics. If the chain of custody is broken, election records suddenly become chaos, not evidence. Local officials are terrified ballots could be lost or tampered with while federal agents hold them.
Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts echoed the alarm, calling this fight “about elections across Georgia and across the nation” and warning the Constitution itself is on the line.
Democrats aren’t the only ones raising eyebrows. Critics on Reddit pointed out that this seizure — coming nearly six years after the 2020 election — is wildly unusual and risks eroding public trust in elections even further. The fact that Trump *and his allies* have fixated on Fulton County since his narrow loss there only adds fuel to that fire.
The FBI operation didn’t happen in a vacuum. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was reportedly on site during the raid — a move that has drawn sharp criticism from lawmakers, including both Republicans and Democrats, for stepping well outside traditional intelligence roles.
Fulton County claims local elections officials weren’t even notified ahead of time, and now they’re stuck trying to claw back control of the materials they’re legally obligated to safeguard.
More on the story in the report below from MS NOW:
