What’s next after the FBI seized Fulton County’s 2020 election records?
Today’s newsletter highlights:
- Test your knowledge with our weekly news quiz.
- Republicans point fingers over mysterious ads attacking Burt Jones.
- Jon Ossoff’s reelection chances.
Looking ahead
Two of the biggest questions surrounding the FBI raid of a Fulton County election center were why Tulsi Gabbard was on the scene — and what comes next.
A Wall Street Journal report offers potential answers to both, and hints at a possible road map for the Trump administration’s next moves.
The Journal reported that Gabbard, a former Democrat who has been Trump’s director of national intelligence, has been sidelined from some national security deliberations and instead has focused on the administration’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
“President Trump and his entire team are committed to ensuring a U.S. election can never, ever be rigged again. Director Gabbard is playing a key lead role in this important effort,” said Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary.
The Journal also reported that Gabbard is expected to prepare a report on her work examining claims of internal interference and that the administration has discussed executive orders on voting ahead of the midterms.
We still don’t know what the Justice Department plans to do with the roughly 700 boxes of Fulton County’s election records. Election law experts are skeptical about how they could use the five-year-old records to bring charges.
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said it’s more likely the Trump administration would claim it has discovered fraud without ever charging someone with a crime or making allegations in court.
“The Department of Justice litigates in federal courts under the rules of evidence,” he said. “And if they put this out on social media before they put it out in court, I think that will tell you everything you need to know about the quality of the investigation they engaged in.”
Friday news quiz
Good morning! State lawmakers are off today, but you’ve got work to do. See how well you followed the week’s news by taking our quiz. You’ll find the answers at the end of this newsletter.
The Georgia Department of Public Safety commissioner told lawmakers the agency is having trouble reaching its goal of having 1,000 state troopers on the road. What is one reason why?
- A) Prospective candidates are being hired away by the state patrols in Florida and Tennessee, which do not have state income taxes.
- B) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is offering up to a $50,000 signing bonus for new hires, luring away some state troopers.
- C) Georgia doesn’t have a separate retirement system for police officers as many other states do.
- D) Georgia has an older fleet of patrol cars that many officers don’t like driving.
The U.S. Justice Department is suing Georgia for access to its voter rolls. But a federal court dismissed its first lawsuit. Why?
- A) The Justice Department never served the secretary of state’s office.
- B) Federal lawyers put the wrong date on the lawsuit.
- C) The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in the wrong court.
- D) Two federal lawyers forgot to sign the lawsuit when they filed it.
Republican state Rep. David Clark is running for lieutenant governor. What did he do this week to curry favor with President Donald Trump?
- A) Filed legislation to urge the renaming of Sawnee Mountain in Forsyth County as Trump Mountain.
- B) Sported a new tattoo of Trump on his right arm.
- C) Proposed adding a statue of Trump on the grounds of the state Capitol in Atlanta.
- D) Advocated for Trump’s birthday to become a new state holiday.
Georgia released new salary data for state workers. Who is the only state agency employee that earned more than $1 million in the previous fiscal year?
- A) Griff Lynch, Georgia Ports Authority president and CEO
- B) Frank Poe, the former Executive Director of the Georgia World Congress Authority
- C) Sonny Perdue, chancellor of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia
- D) Charles Cary, chief investment officer of the Teacher’s Retirement System of Georgia
Mystery money
The anonymous group behind a $9 million barrage of ads targeting Lt. Gov. Burt Jones has loomed over Georgia’s race for governor. Now a text message is raising fresh questions about who knew what.
Neil Bitting, an aide to Attorney General Chris Carr, sent a Republican activist a link on Nov. 26 to the first ad from Georgians for Integrity, according to a message reviewed by the AJC that Bitting confirmed he sent.
The text came a day after records show the shadowy group made its first media buy, but two days before the ads accusing Jones of self-dealing actually began running.
Jones has long accused allies of Carr and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his two main GOP rivals for governor, of being behind the ads. Both campaigns have denied any connection.
Carr’s campaign said the ad was simply shared with Bitting by another Republican, whom officials declined to identify.
“We have consistently said we have no involvement with these ads,” said Carr spokesperson Julia Mazzone, “but the serious allegations of Burt Jones’s self-dealing are widely known and deserve attention.”
Jones’ camp isn’t buying it.
“Another big swing and a miss from Team Carr,” Jones spokesperson Kayla Lott said. “I would encourage the Attorney General to spend more time doing his job and less time obsessing over Burt Jones.”
Shutdown deal?
U.S. Senate leaders are working to muster enough votes today to avert, or at least limit the duration of, a government shutdown. If they succeed, it would keep hundreds of federal employees from being furloughed and, crucially, restart the flow of federal road funding to Georgia.
While last year’s record-setting shutdown ended in November, the government has since been operating under a temporary extension of last year’s budget. When that happens, the federal government doles out transportation funding in daily pieces instead of all at once.
Georgia gets about $1.6 billion in federal transportation money each year, money that’s crucial to get big projects started. Getting that money a little bit at a time does the state no good.
“That’s really not a way to run a business,” Georgia Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry told lawmakers this week.
Congress faces a midnight deadline to keep the government funded to avoid a partial shutdown. Democrats had threatened to block the funding unless the legislation included new civil liberty protections aimed at the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
Democrats and the White House reached a deal on Thursday to remove Department of Homeland Security funding from the six-bill package and replace it with two weeks of temporary spending. That would give lawmakers time to draft a new long-term plan that includes policy changes for immigration enforcement.
It’s unclear whether the deal has the votes to pass in the Senate. If it does, it would go back to the House, which is not meeting this week and members won’t return until Monday. That means there could be a partial government shutdown over the weekend that could end Monday if lawmakers move quickly.
Checking the record
Georgia’s Republican U.S. Senate candidates and their allies have accused U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of ignoring the murder of Laken Riley, the nursing student killed in 2024 by a Venezuelan native in the U.S. illegally.
One of the most recent broadsides came from U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, who said the Democrat’s “silence on the murder of Laken Riley is disgusting, vile, and speaks volumes.”
We checked the record, and it doesn’t take much digging to find Ossoff addressing Riley’s death.
In February 2024, just days after the killing, Ossoff opened an address to the Georgia Senate by expressing “shock and outrage at this horrific murder of a young woman, Laken Riley, in Athens,” and asked lawmakers to stand for a moment of silence.
Ossoff also voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act when it was passed by the Senate last year before being signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Listen up
Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast we break down the FBI’s raid on Fulton County’s election hub in a special Friday edition of the show.
You can listen and subscribe to Politically Georgia for free an Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Have a question or comment for the show? Email us at politicallygeorgia@ajc.com or give us a call at 770-810-5297 and you could be featured on a future episode.
Mood shift
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s reelection chances have shifted from “toss-up” to “leans Democratic,” according to a new analysis of the race by a nonpartisan analyst with the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Kyle Kondik wrote that it’s still reasonable to wonder whether Ossoff can generate enough turnout to win in Georgia. But he also noted the Democrat could benefit if national political sentiment continues to move in his direction.
“Ultimately if Democrats could win Georgia Senate races in a pair of 2020 runoffs as well as in the 2022 midterm, they should be favored to do so in a 2026 midterm, too, particularly when the GOP is not guaranteed to produce a very strong challenger,” he wrote.
That mirrors the thinking of senior Democrats, and even some prominent Republicans, who are growing more confident of his chances.
Today in Washington
- President Donald Trump will sign executive orders and participate in a policy meeting.
- The House returns on Monday.
- The Senate could vote on an amended package to fund the federal government ahead of tonight’s partial shutdown deadline.
Peaceful pushback
Eight Cobb County Democratic lawmakers are pushing back against the local school district’s threat to punish students if they walk out of class today to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“Our students deserve to see leaders respond to their concerns with dialogue — not discipline,” the lawmakers wrote. “We respectfully request that this policy be reversed and replaced with a policy of support for peaceful assembly.”
The statement was signed by state Reps. Solomon Adesanya, Lisa Campbell, Terry Cummings, Shelia Jones, Mekyah McQueen, Gabriel Sanchez, Mary Frances Williams, and state Sen. Jaha Howard.
Shoutouts
Upcoming birthdays:
- State Rep. Lehman Franklin, R-Statesboro (Saturday).
- Kay Pippin, public education lobbyist, former mayor of Jackson and former president of the Henry County Chamber of Commerce (Saturday).
Belated birthday:
- Seth Spann, health care director for UFCW Local 1996 (was Wednesday).
Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that. Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.
Before you go
Answers to this week’s news quiz:
- B) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offering up to $50,000 signing bonuses for new hires. Col. Billy Hitchens, Department of Public Safety commissioner, told lawmakers the state has lost a few employees because of that.
- C) The Justice Department filed it in the wrong court. They filed it in Macon instead of Atlanta. They filed a new lawsuit later.
- A) Filed legislation urging the renaming of Sawnee Mountain after Trump. The resolution calls Trump “the most consequential president of the United States of our generation.”
- A) Griff Lynch, Georgia Ports Authority president and CEO. The authority notes its salaries come from revenues from the port and not from taxpayers.
That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.
About the Authors
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
Tia Mitchell is the AJC’s Washington Bureau Chief and a co-host of the "Politically Georgia" podcast. She writes about Georgia’s congressional delegation, campaigns, elections and the impact that decisions made in D.C. have on residents of the Peach State.
Patricia Murphy is the AJC's senior political columnist. She was previously a nationally syndicated columnist for CQ Roll Call, national political reporter for the Daily Beast and Politics Daily, and wrote for The Washington Post and Garden & Gun. She graduated from Vanderbilt and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
More Stories
The Latest
