Former federal prosecutors denounce FBI seizure of Fulton County ballots
A bipartisan group of former federal prosecutors says the Justice Department should not have sought a search warrant to seize election materials from Fulton County last month.
In a brief filed late Wednesday, a bipartisan group of eight former U.S. attorneys argued “the public record in this case strongly suggests that DOJ has failed to live up to the high standards set by previous administrations,” and the search warrant “represents the abdication of DOJ’s role as a protector of constitutional rights and liberties.”
The group includes former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Robert J. Cleary, who prosecuted the Unabomber case, and Murray Dickman, a former top Justice Department official and a Republican critic of the Trump administration.
The FBI’s Jan. 28 seizure of hundreds of boxes of election documents as part of a criminal probe is the most dramatic move in an ongoing campaign to prove fraud in Fulton’s long-scrutinized election.
The county has been trying to recover the ballots and other material seized, saying the allegations of 2020 election “deficiencies” the FBI is investigating have already been investigated and found to involve human error, not intentional misconduct. In Wednesday’s filing, the former federal prosecutors echoed the county’s arguments, accusing the FBI of misleading a federal magistrate judge by withholding key information in its affidavit.
“The omission of contrary investigative findings and witness credibility limitations is not a minor drafting oversight — it is the type of one-sided presentation that the Fourth Amendment protects against and that the normal processes of DOJ guard against,” the group wrote.
Investigations, court battles and three vote counts, including a hand-count audit of every ballot cast, upheld Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow 2020 victory, and no evidence of wrongdoing has ever been found.
Despite that, President Donald Trump has continued to make baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. The Justice Department sued Fulton for its 2020 ballots after a right-wing trio on the State Election Board sought federal assistance in their dogged effort to investigate 2020 grievances.
Rather than waiting for a resolution in civil court, the administration turned to the FBI and took the records with the aid of a judicial warrant. The affidavit used to justify the seizure cited previously investigated claims and was spurred on by Trump’s handpicked director of elections security and integrity, Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who tried to help Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Court Judge J.P. Boulee postponed a hearing set for Friday on Fulton’s motion to return the ballots and ordered the county and the Justice Department to mediation.
The Justice Department has urged Boulee to reject Fulton’s demand and quash a subpoena for the FBI agent who obtained the search warrant. It has argued the evidence cited was enough to convince a federal magistrate judge, and that decision shouldn’t be invalidated.
Boulee did not rule on whether the FBI seizure was improper. But the judge noted that returning the seized property with conditions is the standard practice if the county’s motion were to be granted.
“In light of all the circumstances in this case, the court believes it is best for the parties to work toward a mutually agreeable resolution before receiving additional evidence,” Boulee wrote in his order late Wednesday.
Boulee gave Fulton and the Justice Department until March 18 to report back on mediation efforts.
About the Authors
Caleb Groves is a general assignment reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's politics team and a Kennesaw State University graduate.
David Wickert writes about the state budget, finance and voting issues. Previously, he covered local government and politics in Gwinnett and Fulton counties. Before moving to Atlanta, he worked at newspapers in Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.
