politics
Federal Judge Denies Fulton County Request to Return Seized 2020 Election Materials
U.S. District Judge Jean-Paul Boulee ruled Wednesday that Fulton County, Georgia, failed to meet the legal threshold to force the return of 2020 election materials seized by the FBI in January. The judge noted defects in the FBI affidavit but found they did not rise to the level of callous disregard for the county's rights.
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A federal judge ruled that the Justice Department may retain ballots and other election materials seized from Fulton County, Georgia, in January. U.S. District Judge Jean-Paul Boulee said the county had not shown that the FBI affidavit supporting the search warrant demonstrated a callous disregard for its constitutional rights, the high bar required to order return of the materials.
"While the Affidavit was certainly far from perfect, this is not a situation where an officer left out all the facts that might undermine probable cause or where an officer intentionally lied," Boulee wrote, according to court filings cited by CNN, CBS News, Bloomberg, the Associated Press and ABC News.
He added that the shortcomings did not meet the high threshold for relief.
The FBI searched a Fulton County elections office in January and seized the materials weeks after opening a criminal probe into alleged irregularities in how the county conducted the 2020 presidential election. The warrant application relied in part on allegations of election fraud.
Fulton County officials filed suit shortly after the search to retrieve the documents. In court filings they argued the probe appeared to be a pretext. The Justice Department called that theory nonsensical and said the county had not met the legal standard for relief, according to the same outlets.
Boulee acknowledged that the affidavit was defective in some respects, including misleading statements about the final ballot count and troubling omissions about ballot handling mechanisms. The judge's ruling leaves the seized ballots and related materials in federal custody while the broader investigation continues. No charges have been publicly announced in connection with the probe.
Separately, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections is attempting to block the Justice Department from accessing personal information of thousands of 2020 election workers. The board has not detailed the scope of its concerns in public statements.
