Days after FBI agents descended on Fulton County to seize records from the 2020 election, conservative activists who have cast doubt on the county’s election were quick to latch onto the number of boxes agents hauled away.
FBI agents said they grabbed 653 boxes — roughly 50 boxes short of what county officials had previously estimated they had of “2020 election materials.” The discrepancy led skeptics to question Fulton, insinuating the county may have obstructed the authorities from accessing some records.
“WHERE ARE THE 50 BOXES!!” State Election Board Vice Chair Janice Johnston, an appointee of the Georgia Republican Party, posted on social media about a week after the raid.
Not all boxes were taken. Fulton officials said they were available, but apparently, the agents didn’t want all the records.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
The warrant granted agents access to seize physical ballots, absentee ballot envelopes, tabulator tapes and other records from the 2020 general election, but not necessarily documents from other elections that year.
Fulton County, in a legal brief this month, wrote “the FBI seized many, but not all, of the boxes labeled as 2020 election records that were in the physical custody of the Clerk.”
Fulton County Superior Court Clerk Ché Alexander spent hours inside the warehouse as agents loaded up trucks. She told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the FBI was seeking only boxes labeled November 2020.
When asked about what she thinks of the rumors circulating about missing boxes, she shrugged.
“I’m a neutral party. I don’t look at it. I don’t try to figure it out,” Alexander said. “I don’t have an opinion on either side of it. I have to do my job, and my job is to make sure that the records are safe and secure once they are delivered to me, and that’s what I’ve done.”
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
The election records are stored in a locked cage where bundles of boxes are wrapped in plastic on pallets. Documents from various elections in March, May, June, August, September and December of 2020 were still being housed in the warehouse as of Friday.
A few boxes appeared unbundled from others with similar dates. Alexander said she isn’t certain of the precise number still in the warehouse.
Conspiracy theories about the county’s 2020 election — many floated by President Donald Trump and his supporters — are hardly new. This is just the latest iteration.
The county has been at the epicenter of false claims of wrongdoing since Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden. They range from uncreased absentee ballots to election workers scanning fraudulent votes at State Farm Arena. Trump and his allies have frequently pulled on threads of truth and presented them as evidence of malfeasance without always seeking the full picture. Multiple recounts, investigations and court cases have dismissed claims as baseless, but Trump’s fans are unconvinced.
The accusations surrounding “missing boxes” show how activists raised alarms publicly without first seeking answers from the county. Johnston acknowledged she never asked the county directly, instead routing her inquiry through the attorney general’s office and receiving what she described as a “tentative response.”
“Seven-hundred fifty to 653 is a significant difference,” Johnston said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC
Asked for clarification, an attorney general’s office spokesperson declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege. A spokesperson at the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who aided Trump in his effort to challenge his 2020 loss, similarly admitted to the AJC she never asked the county before going on the conservative “War Room” podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to question whether the boxes ever existed.
“I mean, you never know with Fulton County,” she told the show’s host. “It’s just a colossal nightmare because they don’t do things they’re supposed to.”
Fulton County Elections Director Nadine Williams has previously estimated the county has more than 700 boxes of the “2020 election materials.” According to a Fulton spokesperson, they “fully complied” with the FBI on Jan. 28.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
“Agents spent more than eight hours at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center and had the opportunity to review all files related to the 2020 election,” a spokesperson said. “Agents were made aware of all 2020 documents and selected the files that they removed from the premises.”
Although Johnston said she’s just pointing out a discrepancy, voting rights organizations said the speculation carries consequences.
“Ultimately, whatever her goal is with promulgating things like this, it increases the political temperature,” said Marisa Pyle of All Voting is Local, a voting rights organization. “It leads to threats against the county.”
Johnston, whom Trump once praised as a “pit bull,” has led the board’s tireless effort to investigate Fulton’s 2020 general election, issuing multiple subpoenas for records and seeking the Justice Department’s help.
She was also one of two right-wing State Election Board members the FBI cited as witnesses in the affidavit used to persuade a federal judge to sign off on a search warrant to seize ballots. The allegations in the affidavit have previously been investigated, and officials have found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Trump and his allies have never let go of his narrow 2020 loss. Since he returned to the White House in 2025, he’s revived claims of widespread election fraud and has lauded the FBI’s ballot seizure. The criminal investigation is the most dramatic move yet in a yearslong campaign to prove fraud in Georgia’s most populous county’s 2020 election.
“The Democrats are fighting like hell to not let anybody see the ballots,” Trump said at a February rally in Rome.
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