ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center in Union City.

An FBI spokesperson said the search involved about 25 FBI personnel who seized an unspecified number documents at the Campbellton-Fairburn Road location. The spokesperson also said Fulton County officials were not notified of the activity beforehand.

Robb Pitts, chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, confirmed the county did not know of the FBI activity ahead of time.

A Fulton County spokesperson later confirmed the search warrant is related “to a number of records related to the 2020 election.”

Tulsi Gabbard, director of National Intelligence, is expected to address the media around 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Last month, the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division filed a lawsuit against Fulton County seeking records related to the 2020 election.

The lawsuit claims in October, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, demanding “all records in your possession responsive” to a July resolution from the State Election Board.

That resolution, the lawsuit states, called about the attorney general for assistance to “effect compliance with voting transparency.”

The October letter requested “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 general election in Fulton County.”

“The FBI is going to do their job and it’s about time that people have answers,” said Salleigh Grubbs, a new member of the state election board. “[The FBI] didn’t enumerate what they were looking for. I could only imagine it would have something to do with the subpoenas that have been issued previously.”

State Sen. Josh McLaurin, D–Sandy Springs, who is running for lieutenant governor this fall, called Wednesday’s FBI search “extremely alarming.

“Fulton County and Georgia are tired of being the target of Donald Trump’s narcissism,” McLaurin said. “This is an order from on high to try to disrupt Fulton County’s election administration just because Donald Trump is still mad that he lost the 2020 election.”

Using the FBI as his personal police force to raid the Fulton County elections office. Donald Trump lost in 2020, he can’t accept that he lost, and we’re all paying the price of electing this wannabe strongman.

Wednesday’s operation also follows a December 2025 admission by Fulton County elections officials they did not properly sign tabulator tapes after the 2020 election, which is a violation of state regulations.

The county also noted it had misplaced other tabulator tapes and documents related to the controversial election.

It’s no coincidence that Donald Trump is raiding the Fulton County Board of Elections and stepping up his attacks on democracy in Georgia the very same week that his administration has demanded voter rolls in Minnesota as ransom to stop ICE’s violence. What we’re watching is a concerted effort to destroy the fabric of our democracy while Trump’s federal agents kill American citizens in the process.

“The Carter Center is deeply concerned by news that agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are executing a search of Fulton County election facilities,” the center said in a statement. “Such an action by the FBI has no recent precedent in American elections. This appears to be yet another attempt to sow doubt in election integrity and undermine voter confidence during a consequential election year.”

“In 2020, amid a global pandemic, millions of Georgians cast their ballots. Since then, their votes have been counted and recounted. The results of the election have been extensively litigated and repeatedly upheld in court. Now, more than five years later, Georgians and Americans everywhere are ready to move on.”

The admission was made by county attorney Ann Brumbaugh during a Dec. 9, 2025 meeting of the State Elections Board.

Tabulator tapes are essentially receipts printed from ballot tabulation machines that help to verify the number of voters matches the number of votes. They are a key piece of the verification and certification process in every county election across the state.

Georgia regulations state a poll manager and two witnesses must be present for the printing, checking and signing of each tape from the machines.

Fulton County was at the center of then-President Donald Trump’s contention that he won Georgia in the 2020 election, an election that saw Democrat Joe Biden become the first Democrat to win the state - or any deep Southern state - in a presidential election since 1992.

After losing Georgia in 2020, Donald Trump demanded state officials ‘find’ votes to change the outcome, tried to use DOJ to overturn it, and spread conspiracy theories that led to the Jan. 6 sacking of the U.S. Capitol. I suspect today’s raid is a continuation of this sore loser’s crusade, despite repeated audits and independent reviews confirming that Donald Trump was indeed defeated.

In the aftermath of that election, Fulton County DA Fani Willis filed a series of historic indictments against Trump and more than a dozen of his GOP allies, charging they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s election results.

The crux of Willis’ indictments was a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the then-45th president asked Raffensperger — now a GOP gubernatorial candidate — to find enough votes for Trump to carry Georgia.

Donald Trump is once again weaponizing the FBI and the Justice Department to go after his political opponents and re-litigate an election he lost 6 years ago. Trump is trying to subvert democracy and as governor, I will always have the courage to fight back and stop him.

However, a since-acknowledged romantic relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade threw the case into an entirely new political and judicial sphere.

Willis was eventually dismissed from prosecuting the case, which landed the case in the hands of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia. On the day before Thanksgiving, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who was overseeing the case, granted a request from the council to drop the charges, dismissing the case in its entirety.

This story is developing.

From the Associated Press:

The FBI last week moved to replace its top agent in Atlanta, Paul W. Brown, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a non-public personnel decision. It was not immediately clear why the move, which was not publicized by the FBI, was made.

The Department of Justice last month sued the clerk of the Fulton County superior and magistrate courts in federal court seeking access to documents from the 2020 election in the county. The lawsuit said the department sent a letter to Che Alexander, clerk of superior and magistrate courts, but that she has failed to produce the requested documents.

Alexander has filed a motion to dismiss the suit. The Justice Department complaint says that the purpose of its request was “ascertaining Georgia’s compliance with various federal election laws.” The attorney general is also trying to help the State Election Board with its “transparency efforts under Georgia law.”

A three-person conservative majority on the State Election Board has repeatedly sought to reopen a case alleging wrongdoing by Fulton County during the 2020 election. It passed a resolution in July seeking assistance from the U.S. attorney general to access voting materials.

This is a blatant attempt to distract from the Trump-authorized state violence that killed multiple Americans in Minnesota. Sending 25 FBI agents to raid our Fulton County elections office is political theater and part of a concerted effort to take over elections in swing districts across the country. Let’s be clear: Trump wants full control of the outcome of the 2026 and 2028 elections because he knows they can’t win without it.

The state board sent subpoenas to the county board for various election documents last year and again on Oct. 6. The October subpoena requested “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

The Justice Department sent a letter to the county election board Oct. 30 citing the federal Civil Rights Act and asking for all records responsive to the October subpoena from the State Election Board. Lawyers for the county election board responded about two weeks later, saying that the records are held by the county court clerk. They also attached a letter the clerk sent to the State Election Board saying that the records are under seal in accordance with state law and can’t be released without a court order.

The Justice Department said it then sent a letter to Alexander, the clerk, on Nov. 21 requesting the documents and that she failed to respond.

The department is asking a judge to declare that the clerk’s “refusal to provide the election records upon a demand by the Attorney General” violates the Civil Rights Act. It is also asking the judge to order Alexander to produce the requested records within five days of a court order.

The State Election Board in May 2024 heard a case that alleged documentation was missing for thousands of votes in the recount of the presidential contest in the 2020 election in 2020. After a presentation by a lawyer and an investigator for the secretary of state’s office, a response from the county and a lengthy discussion among the board members, the board voted to issue a letter of reprimand to the county.

Shortly after that vote, there was a shift in power on the board, and the newly cemented conservative majority sought to reopen the case. The lone Democrat on the board and the chair have repeatedly objected, arguing the case is closed and citing multiple reviews that have found that while the county’s 2020 elections were sloppy and poorly managed there was no evidence of intentional wrongdoing.

The conservative majority voted to subpoena a slew of election records from the county in November 2024. A fight over that subpoena is tied up in court.

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