Court unseals more records in Fulton County suit over FBI search

A national tribunal successful Georgia unsealed cardinal records related to the FBI's seizure of 2020 predetermination materials from Fulton County past month, pursuing an exigency suit filed by the region past week that seeks to regain power of thousands of files.

On Jan. 29, the FBI executed a hunt warrant astatine a Fulton County elections office, seeking to instrumentality ballots arsenic portion of an ongoing probe into the 2020 statesmanlike election. 

Last week, Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts and the county's Board of Registration and Elections sued to compel the instrumentality of implicit 650 boxes containing the 2020 election-related materials, but the lawsuit and related filings were initially sealed.

On Saturday, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee ordered the tribunal documents successful the lawsuit to beryllium unsealed by adjacent of concern Tuesday, including the county's motions to return the documents and to unseal the afloat instrumentality enforcement affidavit that served arsenic the ineligible ground for the raid. That affidavit has not yet been unsealed. 

The region asked for the "return of each archetypal seized materials" and asked Boulee for an bid instructing the authorities "to maintain, but not review, immoderate copies of the seized materials until this substance is resolved."

The FBI's search warrant for the raid sought "all carnal ballots" from the 2020 predetermination successful Fulton County, arsenic good arsenic tapes from vote-tabulating machines, ballot images and elector rolls.

According to a transcript of the hunt warrant that was filed successful national tribunal by Fulton County officials successful a abstracted civilian matter, the bureau appears to beryllium investigating imaginable violations of 2 national laws.

One of those laws makes it a crime for elections officials to intimidate voters and to deprive them of a just predetermination by submitting fraudulent ballots oregon elector registration applications. The different instrumentality requires predetermination officials to clasp national predetermination records for 22 months.

The warrant was signed by a national magistrate judge, which is emblematic successful transgression cases. Authorities indispensable amusement probable origin to a justice earlier they motion disconnected connected a warrant. 

The Justice Department lawyer listed connected the hunt warrant was Thomas Albus, interim U.S. lawyer for the Eastern District of Missouri. On Tuesday morning, Albus formally filed his sanction connected the tribunal docket successful Georgia, indicating helium volition beryllium starring the Justice Department's tribunal proceedings successful the case. It's unclear wherefore Albus is starring the case, and not a Justice Department lawyer from Georgia. 

Fulton County is simply a cardinal Democratic stronghold successful Georgia, and President Trump and his allies' mendacious claims that the 2020 statesmanlike predetermination was stolen from him centered connected the predetermination results there. The allegations, each unfounded to date, included claims that determination was wide elector fraud that led to Joe Biden's constrictive triumph successful the state. 

In December, the Justice Department filed a civilian suit against the Fulton County clerk of courts, asking a justice to unit the handover of the 2020 election-related documents. The section alleged that the region had failed to manus implicit the worldly earlier the suit was filed. The region has moved to disregard the suit, arguing that the Justice Department did not person a morganatic crushed to get the records.