FBI presses ahead with probe of Georgia’s 2020 election

Each one of the FBI’s analysts must conduct an estimated 708 record checks as part of a “priority” investigation, according to the memo first reported by MS NOW and obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The memo does not explain what records analysts are checking or what happens when they finish.

Many election experts don’t believe the FBI will uncover evidence of fraud. But they warn the administration’s efforts could sow doubts about the security of Georgia’s elections months before the high-stakes midterms.

“They’re turning up the volume as they get more desperate,” said David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonprofit that works with election officials to build voter confidence.

Dax Goldstein, the election protection director at the States United Democracy Center, said it’s another effort to “undermine confidence in the midterms.”

Years of attacks from Trump and his allies have rattled election workers. In May, the Fulton County Board of Elections halted a pilot program that expanded where voters could return absentee ballots over safety concerns about election workers transporting ballots from early voting sites to a central hub.

The Trump administration shows no signs of letting up. The FBI memo shows analysts can earn overtime to work on weekends and holidays, stressing the importance of the surge supporting FBI Director Kash Patel’s “priority effort.” The Atlanta field office would provide training, the memo said.

A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment. A Fulton County spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Stephen Richer, a legal scholar for the Cato Institute and the former recorder of Maricopa County in Arizona, called it an embarrassing allocation of resources.

“These people are normally working on terrorism, violent crimes, weapons trafficking or large financial fraud,” he said. “Now we have them chasing political boogeymen because the president still can’t take an L from six years ago.”

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

The move comes amid a criminal investigation into the 2020 election of Georgia’s most populous and heavily Democratic county. In an extraordinary law enforcement operation, FBI agents seized hundreds of boxes of Fulton County’s 2020 ballots and other election records in January. Months later, the Justice Department has released no evidence of wrongdoing as part of its investigation into alleged “irregularities.”

An affidavit justifying the ballot seizure relied largely on debunked conspiracies and laid bare that the criminal probe began with a referral by Kurt Olsen, an attorney who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. A federal judge later called parts of the affidavit “troubling” and “defective in some respects,” though he ultimately rejected Fulton’s efforts to retrieve its records from the FBI.

Fulton County did not appeal that ruling before a Monday deadline.

The investigation intensified in April, when the Justice Department demanded the personal information for thousands of Fulton County’s paid and volunteer election workers. A federal judge has temporarily paused that demand while Fulton County tries to quash the grand jury subpoena. A ruling against the DOJ would be the first court decision against the Trump administration’s Fulton investigation.

At each juncture where the Justice Department could have substantiated the probe, it has produced process instead of public proof. The evidence from the January raid has yielded no charges. The five-year statute of limitations for most federal crimes has already lapsed for conduct from the 2020 election. The subpoena fight has generated court filings and raised more questions than answers. Now comes the analyst surge.

Trump’s 2020 loss in Georgia has been heavily scrutinized. Years of conspiracies pushed by Trump and his allies have repeatedly been debunked by election officials, state and federal investigators and judges. Three vote counts, including a hand count of every ballot cast, upheld Biden’s narrow victory.

But Trump has never conceded his defeat. Since reclaiming the White House last year, he has taken aggressive actions to transform American elections ahead of the midterms, installed election deniers in the administration and wielded the federal government to investigate his 2020 grievances. Many of the administration’s boldest efforts have been blocked by judges.

Georgia once again finds itself in Trump’s crosshairs as it was in the aftermath of the 2020 election. And Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who resisted Trump’s pressure to “find” votes to reverse his 2020 election defeat, has continued to defend the security of the state’s elections.

“Georgia runs the most secure elections in the nation, and our office stands ready to assist law enforcement in any investigation that will reassure Georgians that their votes are cast securely and counted accurately,” Raffensperger said in a statement.

A week after the ballot seizure in January, Trump said “some interesting things” would result from the raid. Whatever hundreds of FBI staffers find — or don’t — is due in less than two weeks. What comes next is unclear.