Trump-nominated judge halts DOJ demand for identities of 2020 election workers
A federal judge on Tuesday quashed a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking the identities and personal information of thousands of 2020 Fulton County election workers.
U.S. District Court Judge Bill Ray, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, called the breadth of the demand “staggering.”
“These records, even if they lead to the DOJ finding individuals who worked for Fulton County in the 2020 Election who support the theory that the 2020 Election was not fair, would not lead to information that could be used to charge anyone with anything, at least not any viable charge,” Ray wrote in a 28-page ruling.
The ruling is a setback for the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of what it refers to as 2020 election “irregularities.” Trump has falsely insisted the election was rigged after losing to Democrat Joe Biden.
The subpoena sought the names, duties, home addresses, email addresses and personal phone numbers of people involved in the 2020 election in Georgia’s most populous county, long a focus of Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud.
The Fulton County Elections Board has cast the subpoena as an unprecedented, politically motivated move that would undermine poll worker participation in elections. In court documents, the county said it is equivalent to an “arbitrary fishing expedition” into unprosecutable potential offenses.
Ray agreed. The judge said if a private company failed to protect such information, it would most likely be sued in a class-action lawsuit.
“Everyone, whether you support the President or you do not, or whether you believe the 2020 Election was fair or believe that it was not, should be concerned about the DOJ’s ability to utilize the power of the Grand Jury to appropriate your private information without a legitimate purpose,” Ray wrote.
The Justice Department and Fulton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ray noted that even if there were a crime committed, it would fall outside the statute of limitations.
“The DOJ cannot evade the statute of limitations based merely on a theory that someone, somewhere, somehow did something that was illegal,” he added.
The ruling comes after an internal FBI memo, first reported by MS NOW and obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, revealed the FBI has ordered 260 analysts to complete thousands of records checks over the next two weeks related to Fulton County’s 2020 election.
Trump has never let go of his 2020 defeat, despite multiple investigations, court cases and vote counts finding no evidence of fraud.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has wielded the federal government to reopen 2020 investigations, install election deniers in federal posts and take aggressive actions to insert the federal government into elections ahead of the midterms.
The Justice Department has released no evidence of wrongdoing. The agency said it’s still gathering evidence that could lead to formal charges, even though the election falls outside the five-year statute of limitations.
The Justice Department argued that until it identifies a conspiracy or some other charge, it’s impossible to know when the crime’s main aims are complete and whether potential concealment is a component of the plan or simply a cover-up in the aftermath.
The administration launched the criminal investigation into Georgia’s most populous county after a referral by the White House’s then-election security and integrity director Kurt Olsen. The twice-sanctioned lawyer and prominent election denier has since joined a U.S. attorney’s office in Florida that is examining if previous probes of Trump amounted to a criminal conspiracy against him.
FBI agents descended onto Fulton in late January, raiding an election warehouse for troves of 2020 ballots and other election records. A federal judge denied Fulton’s effort to retrieve such documents in a May ruling — though the Trump-appointed judge called parts of the affidavit used to justify the extraordinary seizure “troubling” and “defective in some respects.”
Fulton County officials have argued the subpoena could have undermined confidence in the midterms and chilled participation of poll workers, as Trump and his acolytes have made baseless accusations about two Fulton poll workers that led to death threats and upended their lives.
In December 2020, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani showed state senators video of vote counting at State Farm Arena that he called a “smoking gun” for election fraud. He said the video showed workers counting “suitcases” full of ballots after ordering Republican observers to leave. But investigators found nothing of the sort. They discovered the video showed only ordinary ballot counting.
Long after their claims were debunked, Giuliani and Trump continued to accuse two election workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — of fraud. The workers eventually won a $148 million defamation verdict against Giuliani. The suit was later settled for an undisclosed amount.
Ray said the disclosure of information sought in the subpoena “threatens to chill participation in future elections, which will surely impact Fulton County.”