Fulton County officials claim political retribution behind FBI elections raid

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said the FBI raided his county’s elections office Wednesday “because I stood up to Donald Trump’s big lie.”

On Thursday, Pitts and Fulton County elections chair Sherri Allen continued to maintain that their county’s elections process and procedures are secure, fair and accurate. They claim political retribution from the White House was behind Wednesday’s stunning, high-profile raid at Fulton County’s elections hub.

According to Pitts, “Fulton County has been targeted for years ... because I refused to bend to pressure” from Trump in 2020 in the aftermath of the general election.

MORE COVERAGE

• Georgia political leaders react to FBI raid on Fulton elections office
• FBI executes search warrant at Fulton County’s main election office

That election saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat since 1992 to win Georgia — or any other deep Southern state — in a general presidential election. Democrats coined the term, “Donald Trump’s big lie,” to refer to his allegations he lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud.

On Thursday, Pitts said in 2020, he told Trump and his allies “to stay the hell out of Fulton County. I meant it then, and I mean it today.”

“Every audit, every recount, every court ruling has confirmed what we, the people of Fulton County, already knew,” he continued. “Our elections were fair and accurate, and every legal vote was counted. These ongoing efforts are about intimidation and distraction, not facts.”

On Thursday, an FBI spokesperson said they have no further comment, pointing to a Wednesday statement saying, “the FBI is conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity. No other information is available at this time.”

On Wednesday, county officials said the FBI seized 700 boxes of ballots and records related to the 2020 election, which Trump has long decried as a reason for his reelection loss six years ago.

“Fulton County is now, has been and always will be committed to upholding the law,” Pitts said Thursday. “No matter what anyone else does, our attorneys carefully reviewed the search warrant and advised me and others that it was in the best interest of Fulton County to comply, which we did.

“One of the strangest things about this case is that these records were the subject of active litigation and, quite frankly, were likely to be unsealed and turned over in a matter of weeks. All he had to do was ask the judge to do so. But albeit in a much more orderly manner, we in Fulton County have nothing, nothing, nothing to hide.”

The raid took place at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center in Union City. An FBI spokesperson said the search involved about 25 agency personnel, who seized documents at the Campbellton Fairburn Road location.

FBI spokesperson Jenna Sellitto confirmed that the boxes contained ballots. Among the 2020 election documents sought are ballots, tabulator tapes from the scanners used to tally the ballots, electronic ballot images and voter rolls.

The U.S. Justice Department had no immediate comment.

Last month, the Justice Department sued the clerk of the Fulton County superior and magistrate courts in federal court, seeking access to documents from the 2020 election in the county. The lawsuit said the department sent a letter to the clerk, Che Alexander, but that she had failed to produce the requested documents.

The Justice Department complaint said the purpose of its request was “ascertaining Georgia’s compliance with various federal election laws.” Alexander has filed a motion to dismiss the suit.

Fulton County was at the center of Trump’s contention that he won Georgia in the 2020 election.

In the aftermath of that election, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed a series of historic indictments against Trump and more than a dozen of his GOP allies, claiming they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s election results.

The crux of Willis’ indictments was a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the then-45th president asked Raffensperger — now a GOP gubernatorial candidate — to find enough votes for Trump to carry Georgia.

However, a romantic relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade threw the case into an entirely new political and judicial sphere.

Willis was eventually dismissed from prosecuting the case, which landed it in the hands of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia. On the day before Thanksgiving, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who was overseeing the case, granted the council’s request to drop the charges, dismissing the case in its entirety.

“For the life of me, I still cannot understand the fascination with the 2020 election,” Pitts said Wednesday night. “We can no longer, and I can no longer, as chair of this board, satisfy not only the citizens of Atlanta, but the citizens of the world that those ballots are still secure. That is a major concern that I have right now.”

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