FBI Seizes 700 Boxes Of 2020 Ballots At Fulton County Elections Office In Atlanta

Federal agents executed a “court-authorized activity” at the Fulton County Elections Office in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 28, seizing “hundreds of cartons containing ballots from the time, as well as voter rolls,” according to reporting cited by Le Monde.fr.

The operation targeted the elections hub in Georgia’s most populous county, which includes most of Atlanta, and Fulton County officials said the materials had been kept under a court-ordered seal because of pending litigation, as described by the AJC.

20Minutos

In Spanish-language reporting, 20Minutos said the FBI “allanó este miércoles una oficina electoral en Georgia” and that Fulton County received “una orden de registro para todas las boletas del condado de Fulton de las elecciones de 2020,” with Fulton County commissioner Mo Ivory saying, “Están allí recolectando 700 cajas de papeletas en este momento.”

The same 20Minutos account said FBI spokespeople in Atlanta confirmed the bureau “ejecutaron una orden autorizada por una corte,” while warning that “los detalles son privados por el momento.”

La Presse and Radio-Canada both described the search as taking place at the Fulton County Elections Office in Atlanta, with AFP saying the FBI carried out a “lawfully authorized police action.”

Multiple outlets tied the raid to Donald Trump’s continued insistence that the 2020 election involved fraud, with La Presse quoting Trump’s Davos threat that “People will soon be indicted for what they did,” and Radio-Canada repeating the same line as part of his remarks.

The items taken during the Jan. 28 search were described in detail by CBS News and the AJC, which said the elections hub housed documents from 2020 including “the physical ballots cast by voters,” kept under a court-ordered seal.

CBS News said the affidavit described the search as part of an FBI investigation into possible “deficiencies or defects” in the Fulton County vote count, including Fulton County’s admission that it does not have scanned images of all ballots counted during the original count or the recount.

95.5 WSB

CBS News also listed the seized materials as “all ballots, tabulator tapes from the scanners that tally the votes, electronic ballot images created when the ballots were counted and then recounted, and all voter rolls from the 2020 election.”

The AJC described the elections hub as a “600,000-square-foot elections hub in south Fulton,” and said it was used for voting and county election board meetings.

In the same AJC account, the physical ballots and other 2020 documents were described as having been kept under seal because of pending litigation.

La Presse and Radio-Canada both said federal agents were recovering ballot boxes from the warehouse where they were stored, with an administrative official for Fulton County contacting the AJC describing a “large number of federal agents” retrieving boxes.

A newly released DOJ timeline and subsequent court rulings focused on how quickly the criminal probe moved and what the government was required to disclose.

CNN said the timeline showed the FBI seized 2020 election materials “just a few weeks after opening a criminal probe,” and it described the timeline as filed on Friday after an order from District Judge Jean-Paul Boulee asking for further information on the inception of the FBI’s criminal investigation.

CNN reported that Kurt Olsen formally launched the criminal probe on January 5, 2026 at 9:03 a.m., and that the motion to dismiss the civil litigation was filed at 8:36 p.m. that same day, while the FBI assigned Hugh Raymond Evans opened an “assessment” on January 6, 2026.

CNN further said Evans drafted an investigative summary on January 19 and that it was converted into a warrant affidavit on January 22, with the FBI serving a warrant on January 28—23 days after the criminal probe launched.

Democracy Docket said the DOJ turned over key details after a federal court order and that the timeline indicated the FBI executed the raid “just weeks after receiving a complaint from Kurt Olsen,” with Olsen sending the referral on the morning of Jan. 5.

CBS News said Boulee partially granted Fulton County’s request for more information and gave the DOJ a deadline of Friday at 5 p.m. to answer three questions, including “The date that Olsen referred the investigation to the FBI,” “The date that the FBI opened the criminal investigation,” and “The date on which the Department of Justice began drafting the affidavit.”

The accounts diverged on what the raid meant, with some framing it as a lawful investigation into election-record handling and others describing it as politically motivated or unusually fast.

CNN quoted Andrew McCabe saying, “This all happened very quickly, particularly for a case like this, which I think raises the question very legitimately, why was this such a priority?” and McCabe added that “political pressure” could be the motivation, while also saying “The evidence, or ballots in this case, McCabe said, isn’t going anywhere.”

AJC

CNN also quoted Michael Moore saying the speed from formal referral to search warrant was “pretty expeditious” and “not the kind of thing you typically see,” and Moore said the pace was unusual because the case did not appear to deal with “matters of life and limb.”

In contrast, 20Minutos reported that FBI spokespeople said they “ejecutaron una orden autorizada por una corte,” and that details were private “por el momento,” while the FBI was described as acting on a court order for all 2020 ballots in Fulton County.

Le Monde.fr described the warrant signature as bearing the signature of the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri and said it seemed illogical, and it characterized the operation as “extraordinary, highly politicized and abnormal.”

The AJC described the FBI spokesperson’s characterization of the raid as “court-authorized,” and it said the warrant sought ballots from the 2020 election that Donald Trump has claimed was filled with fraud, while also noting that past recounts and court challenges have not backed up those assertions.

The raid’s implications were framed in terms of election administration and potential federal involvement, with CNN en Español describing Democratic officials preparing for a possible federal government intervention in midterm elections.

CNN en Español quoted Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon saying, “The possibility of federal government intervention in state elections is now in a category similar to a weather phenomenon, a bomb threat, or a blackout,” and it reported that Simon stressed he was not predicting such interference.

AJC

The same CNN en Español account said Democratic secretaries of state discussed measures including protecting voters from interactions with federal law enforcement at polling places and managing government pressure to obtain access to personal information of tens of millions of voters.

It also quoted Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar saying he wants to ensure polling centers in East Las Vegas have enough staff and voting equipment to avoid long lines during peak hours, adding he worries that long lines could expose voters to harassment by federal immigration agents.

In parallel, La Libre.be described the raid as raising concerns about destabilizing the 2026 midterm elections, quoting David Becker saying it is “very unlikely” that new evidence of hypothetical fraud will appear and adding that if that isn’t the objective, “then the objective must be to create a false narrative around election security, intended to destabilize the 2026 elections.”

Meanwhile, CBS News reported that Boulee will decide whether the federal government seized during the search, and it said the judge ordered DOJ to answer specific questions by Friday at 5 p.m., with supplemental briefs due by May 5 at noon.