Fulton County asks court to return 2020 election documents seized by the FBI

ATLANTA (AP) — Officials in Georgia’s Fulton County said Wednesday they have asked a federal court to order the FBI to return ballots and other documents from the 2020 election that they seized last week, escalating a voting battle as President Donald Trump says he wants to “seize” elections from Democratic-run districts heading into November’s midterm elections.

The FBI had searched a warehouse near Atlanta where those records were stored, a step taken after Trump’s continued demands for retaliation over allegations, without evidence, that fraud cost him victory in Georgia. Trump’s election comment came in a Monday interview with a conservative podcast host, and the Republican president reiterated his position in Oval Office remarks the next day, citing fraud allegations that have been debunked by numerous audits, investigations and courts.

Read more: Thune throws cold water on Trump’s call to “nationalize” US elections

Officials in heavily Democratic Fulton County pointed to those statements in announcing their legal action at a time of growing concern about Trump’s plans for the fall elections that will determine control of Congress.

“This case is not just about Fulton County,” County Chairman Rob Bates said. “This is about elections across Georgia and across the country.”

In a nod to this broader concern, US Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, said this week that he once doubted that Trump would interfere in the midterm elections, but now “the theoretical idea that he would ask his loyalists to do something inappropriate, outside the scope of the Constitution, scares the hell out of me.”

The White House has ridiculed these concerns, noting that Trump did not interfere in the 2025 election outside of the year despite expectations from some Democrats that he would. But the president’s party typically loses popularity in midterm elections, and Trump has already tried to tip the fall election in his favor.

He watches: Warner criticizes Trump and Gabbard’s involvement in FBI search of Fulton County elections office

Democratic state election officials have reacted to Trump’s remarks, the seizure of election materials in Georgia and his aggressive deployment of federal officers in Democratic-leaning cities by planning for a wide range of possible scenarios this fall. This includes how they would react if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were stationed outside polling places.

They also raised concerns about lawsuits brought by the US Department of Justice, mostly targeting Democratic states, seeking detailed voter data that includes dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers. Foreign ministers have raised concerns that the administration is building a database that could be used to disenfranchise voters in upcoming elections.

Trump and his allies have long focused on Fulton County, Georgia’s most populous, since he narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. In the weeks following that election, Trump called Georgia’s secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, urging him to help “find” 11,780 ballots that would enable Trump to declare Georgia the winner of the state and raised the possibility of a “criminal offense” if the official failed to comply.

Raffensperger did not change the vote count, and Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes. Days later, rioters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and attempted to prevent the official certification of Biden’s victory. When Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, he pardoned more than 1,000 defendants in that siege.

“The president himself and his allies refuse to accept the reality of their loss,” Bates said. “Even if he had won Georgia, he would have lost the presidency.”

Bates defended the county’s election practices and said Fulton has run 17 elections since 2020 without any problems.

The warrant cover sheet provided to the county included a list of items agents were looking for in connection with the 2020 general election: all ballots, tabulating tapes from scanners that counted votes, electronic ballot images created when ballots were counted and then recounted, and all voter lists.

The FBI seized hundreds of ballot boxes and other documents. County officials say they were not told why the federal government wanted the documents.

The county is also asking the court to unseal the statement made by a law enforcement officer that was provided to the judge who approved the search warrant.

The Ministry of Justice declined to comment on the boycott proposal.

“We don’t know what they’re doing with the ballots they have now, but if they were counted fairly and honestly, the results would be the same,” Bates said.

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, was present at Fulton’s inspection last week, and Democrats in Congress questioned the appropriateness of her presence because the inspection was a law enforcement action, not an intelligence procedure.

In a letter to top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees on Monday, Gabbard said Trump asked her to be there “under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security.”

White House spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said Tuesday that the president’s comments about the “takeover,” which included a vague reference to “15 places” that should be targeted, were a reference to the SAVE Act, legislation that would tighten proof of citizenship requirements. Republicans want to put it to a vote in Congress.

But in his remarks that day, Trump did not mention this proposal. Instead, he claimed that Democratic-controlled places like Atlanta, which is mainly in Fulton County, suffer from “horrible election corruption. The federal government should not allow it.”

The Constitution gives states the ability to administer elections. Congress could add rules for federal races. One of Trump’s first actions during his second term was an executive order that attempted to rewrite voting rules nationwide. Judges blocked it largely because it violated the Constitution.

Trump asserted that the states were “agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they cannot count the votes legally and honestly, someone else should take over.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-S.C., said Wednesday that he supports the SAVE Act but not Trump’s desire to seize federal power. Telles told reporters, “Nationalizing the elections and choosing 15 states seems somewhat far-fetched.”

Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press video journalist Nathan Elgren in Washington contributed to this report.