A federal judge on Wednesday refused to order the Department of Justice to return thousands of 2020 election ballots seized from Fulton County, Georgia, terminating a lawsuit brought by county officials following a January election facility raid.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, an appointee of President Donald Trump, rejected Fulton County’s request to recover ballots and election materials taken earlier this year as part of a federal investigation into alleged 2020 election irregularities. Despite upholding the government’s broad authority to investigate the county’s election materials, he stressed the outcome could have been different had the FBI intervened during an active election.
“Importantly, the seizure at issue in this case did not interfere with the State’s ability to conduct the 2020 election or certify election results, nor have Petitioners shown that it will hinder the State’s ability to conduct future elections,” Boulee wrote.
The FBI seized more than 600 boxes of 2020 election records from a Fulton County election warehouse in January after obtaining a search warrant tied to a DOJ investigation into alleged irregularities during the 2020 presidential election, which drew eyeballs and attention due to the unusual supervision by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Boulee acknowledged the possibility of flaws and inconsistencies in the FBI affidavit used to secure the warrant, calling portions of it “problematic,” “troubling,” and “misleading.” But he ultimately concluded the county failed to show federal investigators acted with the kind of “callous disregard” for constitutional rights necessary for a judge to intervene and halt an ongoing criminal investigation.
The ruling also highlighted several allegations reviewed by FBI investigators, including claims involving duplicate ballots, missing ballot images, unsigned tabulator tapes, and so-called “pristine ballots.”
One section of the affidavit discussed a witness who identified duplicate ballots containing unique markings in both the original vote count and the recount, prompting concerns that there were duplicate or newly added ballots that may have been intentionally inserted to make recount totals match the original count. Investigators ultimately found no intentionality.
In actuality, the affidavit states that investigators discovered the duplicate ballots actually appeared to favor Trump rather than then-candidate Joe Biden. A witness cited in the affidavit concluded the issue “could be intentional but was not partisan” because Trump received a higher percentage of those ballots than his Fulton County average.
The judge further cited in his opinion that Georgia election officials previously investigated the duplicate ballot issue and concluded that any duplication likely stemmed from “human error.”
However, Boulee emphasized that the government gave the county the benefit of the doubt, noting the FBI affidavit included both incriminating and exculpatory information instead of concealing contrary evidence from the magistrate judge who approved the warrant.
“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.
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In denying Fulton County’s request, Boulee said courts must apply the law equally regardless of politics or public controversy.
“To apply the law differently here because of what this case is about, or whose records are at issue, would defy our Nation’s foundational principle that our law applies to all,” the judge wrote.