How one of Trump’s ‘pit bulls’ paved the way for the FBI’s raid in Fulton
On the day the FBI raided a Fulton County warehouse in late January, seizing hundreds of boxes of records from the 2020 election, Janice Johnston watched from the front seat of a car, pleased with the culmination of her yearslong quest.
The vice chair of the State Election Board and fellow board member, Salleigh Grubbs, joined Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast to discuss what was unfolding on the other side of the windshield.
Johnston told Bannon that the fact the board had been fighting in court to get the Fulton records was “probably part or maybe a significant part of the reason the FBI is here.”
“So it is a relief to see the FBI agents here,” she said.
The 75-year-old Johnston had accused Fulton for years of impropriety in the 2020 election. The Trump administration took notice of her dogged effort, citing her as a key witness in the FBI affidavit used to justify the raid.
After the raid, voting rights groups excoriated Johnston and board member Janelle King for providing information to the FBI.
Numerous investigations have found issues in the county’s conduct of 2020, but they have found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing. Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow victory was confirmed by three vote counts, including a hand count audit of every ballot cast in the state.
FBI raids Fulton election office
Search warrants showed agents were seeking ballots from the 2020 election that Donald Trump has claimed was filled with fraud. Past recounts and court challenges have not backed up those assertions. Read more
Court filing: Bipartisan group of former prosecutors denounce FBI seizure
The case: Election skeptics eagerly await criminal charges in Fulton election case
Interview: State Election Board chair dismisses calls for Fulton County takeover
Allegations: Skeptics of 2020 election look for answers
Reaction: FBI affidavit for Fulton’s 2020 records fuels GOP calls for state takeover
Affidavit explained: The AJC breaks down key details in the document used to seize the ballots
The affidavit: Unsealed documents in Fulton County raid show FBI relied on election skeptics
Watch: Police body cam footage shows confusion at FBI raid
Trump: Fulton FBI raid will show 2020 election was stolen
Timeline: How we got here
Opinion: The FBI raid isn’t about the 2020 elections. It’s about 2026 and 2028.
Listen to the AJC’s Breakdown podcast: Fulton County vs. Donald Trump
Special report: Inside the campaign to undermine Georgia’s election
The latest move is an escalation in the ongoing battle over the results of the 2020 presidential election. This month:
“Both members relied on misconstructions, contortions and disinformation in the information that they provided to the FBI,” Marisa Pyle, Georgia director for the voting rights group All Voting is Local, said at a board meeting last month.
But Grubbs, the first-vice chair of the Georgia Republican Party, said Johnston’s “commitment to free and fair elections is unparalleled.”
Johnston declined to comment for this article.
Rise to power
The State Election Board is charged with election rulemaking, reviewing allegations of voting infractions and imposing fines. When Johnston was appointed in 2022, the retired obstetrician and activist from Atlanta was the only one on the five-person board without a legal background. But her history as a poll worker and outspoken voice at Fulton County Election Board meetings after Biden’s victory caught the attention of the Georgia Republican Party.
At meetings, Johnston called for the firing of the Fulton elections director, criticized the job performance of temporary election workers and repeated unsubstantiated allegations.
“She is retired now from her medical practice and has full time to devote to this important responsibility,” said David Shafer, then chair of the Georgia GOP, at the time of Johnston’s appointment.
Backed by conservative activists and election skeptics, Johnston was frequently outvoted by more moderate board members until a new majority voting bloc took control to test the limits of its rulemaking authority ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump supporters, election skeptics and paper ballot proponents would pack the hearing room during meetings, cheering on rule changes pushed by Johnston and her allies.
Johnston and two other board members’ efforts caught Trump’s attention. He lauded them as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory,” during a 2024 campaign rally in Atlanta.
Johnston told Trump at the event, “Your courage is contagious.”
She’s taken up similar policy positions to the president, such as opposing voting machines, eliminating the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and scrapping no-excuse absentee voting.
Oversight and roadblocks
It’s been a rocky couple of years for Johnston and her allied board members in the courts.
The board settled a 2024 lawsuit alleging obstructing access to records. It was sued for holding an impromptu meeting to approve new election rules. And the state Supreme Court struck down some of the most contentious of those rules, determining they were outside the scope of the board’s authority.
And state investigators determined Johnston violated the board’s code of conduct while attending Trump’s campaign rally.
That’s not all.
The left-of-center activist organization American Oversight sued the board and Johnston over access to public records. The board settled with the watchdog group and paid it $50,000 in state funds for attorneys’ fees.
Johnston still called it a win.
Despite the pushback and legal challenges, Johnston’s desire to investigate Fulton’s 2020 election for wrongdoing never wavered. She reopened investigations, sought years-old election documents, called for an assist from the U.S. Department of Justice and attempted to install a team of right-wing election skeptics as monitors in Fulton’s 2024 election.
Call in the Justice Department
On the night votes were being counted for what became Trump’s 2024 victory, the right-wing majority delivered a subpoena to Fulton for 2020 election records. The subpoena specified that the documents should be delivered to Johnston.
Fulton officials resisted, but Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled the board could have the records if it could cover the cost of production. The county estimated the cost at more than $435,000 — money the board didn’t have in its budget.
In October 2025, the board sent another subpoena, this time for Fulton’s 2020 ballots. Fulton received another request for the same documents later that month, this time from the U.S. Department of Justice. The Justice Department sued for the ballots in December.
Instead of letting the civil proceedings play out, the Trump administration had the FBI seize the records, frustrating McBurney.
“Instead of taking the time to make copies, the Bureau took the originals, leaving the County without the very ballots the SEB was attempting to review,” said McBurney in his order putting the case for the 2024 subpoena on hold.
That hasn’t stopped Johnston.
In an email obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Johnston notified board members that she directed Board Executive Director James Mills to send letters to Fulton asking the county to hold onto all documents related to the 2020 election. The board didn’t vote on sending the letters until well after Johnston’s unilateral decision.
In that same email, she suggested the county may have hidden records from federal authorities. Fulton has previously estimated that it had stowed away more than 700 boxes of election documents, but the FBI said it hauled away about 650.
“I have grave concerns about the security of the ballots and documents before the arrival of the FBI,” she wrote.
She’s continued to harp on the discrepancy in recent social media posts. But for now, Johnston doesn’t seem to mind that the records are in the hands of the Trump administration.
“DO NOT RETURN FULTON COUNTY BALLOTS AND ELECTION DOCUMENTS TO FULTON COUNTY UNTIL THEY HAVE ALL BEEN COPIED, REVIEWED AND INVESTIGATED,” she wrote in an early February post on X, tagging Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
A state takeover?
The federal criminal probe comes as the president has continued his baseless claims of a stolen election, installed election deniers in his administration and suggested Republicans nationalize elections.
The raid has sparked concerns among Democrats and voting rights groups that the right-wing majority on the state board would use it as an opportunity to intervene in Fulton’s election processes and install an appointee to take control. Republicans have leaned into the fears. Trump has bolstered calls for a state takeover of the heavily Democratic county’s elections.
Johnston and her allies haven’t ruled out the idea. But years earlier, Johnston voted against such a move after a performance review of Fulton.
“In the interim, something has changed, whether it’s Trump’s pressure on her, whether it’s her relationships with these outside election deniers, but they have very much taken on this mission now of targeting Fulton County,” state Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, said.
The move would give a state board appointee broad authority over election operations in Fulton, including decisions over polling place closures, election certification and voter registration challenges.
Recounting her time on the scene of the FBI raid to a friendly crowd during an “election integrity update” Zoom call days after the seizure, Johnston said after the federal agents loaded up trucks, she followed them to the gates of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office in Chamblee — a more than 30-mile trip.
The records she had spent years trying to obtain are now indefinitely out of reach.
“We turned around and said goodbye to those precious election documents,” Johnston recalled.
About the Author
Caleb Groves is a general assignment reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's politics team and a Kennesaw State University graduate.
