By Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Georgia’s Fulton County filed a challenge on Wednesday to the legality of a warrant and seizure of election records in an FBI search of an election facility last week, seeking the return of all confiscated files and the unsealing of a related affidavit.
The FBI searched the election office outside Atlanta as it pursues U.S. President Donald Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voting fraud.
The raid was the latest in a string of actions by Trump’s administration to use the Justice Department against his perceived enemies or to intervene in cases in which he believes he was treated unfairly.
The county asked a federal court to limit the warrant to provide an opportunity for a forensic accounting of all the documents and to request they stay in Georgia, Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. told Reuters in an interview, adding that ideally he would like all records returned.
“Frankly, though, it’s really too late,” Arrington said. “Even if they give us the records back, we still don’t know if they lost records or deleted records because there was no inventory, there was no orderly transition of these files.”
FBI agents searched the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City, a large, warehouse-like facility opened in 2023.
“This morning, February 4, 2026, Fulton County has filed a motion in federal court, in the Northern District of Georgia, seeking the return of all files from the 2020 Election that were confiscated by the FBI on Wednesday, January 28,” a county spokesperson said in a statement.
“The motion also seeks the unsealing of the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant,” the spokesperson added.
According to a copy of the search warrant seen by Reuters, the FBI was directed to seize all physical ballots from the 2020 general election in Fulton County as well as tabulator tapes for every voting machine used and voter rolls from absentee, early voting, in-person and other voters.
Joe Biden, a Democrat, won Georgia and defeated Trump, a Republican who was seeking reelection in 2020. Trump returned to the presidency for a second term last year after winning the 2024 election.
The seizure of the records comes ahead of November’s midterm elections, with Republicans seeking to retain their control of both chambers of Congress.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward; additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Susan Heavey and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by David Ljunggren and Will Dunham)
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