Fulton County Challenges FBI’s Legal Grounds for 2020 Election Ballot Seizures: A Deep Dive into Controversial Claims

The attorneys representing the state have argued that the FBI affidavit, which served as the basis for the search warrant at the Election Hub in Fulton County, Georgia, during the Trump administration, failed to demonstrate probable cause. Consequently, they are urging a federal judge to mandate the immediate return of the 2020 election ballots that were seized.

Fulton County has submitted an amended request for the return of the seized property, highlighting the perceived inadequacies in the affidavit that was presented to a magistrate judge. The county claims that the Trump administration did not sufficiently establish probable cause for any alleged criminal activity.

Before U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee made the affidavit public, Fulton County had already suspected that the Trump administration was misusing the legal system. They claimed it relied on outdated conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election, which were included in the affidavit while crucial facts were allegedly left out during the review by U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas.

The county contends that the government’s case hinges on “baseless” and “unfounded” allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. They argue that it is “difficult to imagine how the affidavit supports probable cause.”

Fulton County asserts that the affidavit corroborates the initial stance of Robb Pitts, Chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. According to the amended motion, the Trump administration’s seizure of ballots, ballot images, tabulators, and voter rolls was a “callous” breach of constitutional rights, aimed at altering the narrative of President Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Calling the warrant “entirely devoid of probable cause” and the seizure a “flagrant constitutional violation,” Fulton County said the Trump administration did “not identify a single piece of evidence from the FBI’s investigation establishing probable cause to believe that anyone intentionally, let alone willfully, violated” criminal statutes.

“Instead of relying on the Affiant’s personal knowledge, it lists a smorgasbord of witness speculation, beliefs, and theories to identify certain categories of ‘deficiencies or defects,’” the filing said. “But the Affidavit cannot bootstrap speculative hearsay into probable cause.”

And the witness speculation Fulton County referred to is hardly new.

Law&Crime reported one week ago that the underlying investigation traces back to Kurt Olsen, a 2020 election denier turned Director of Election Security and Integrity who spoke with Trump several times on Jan. 6, 2021, and who tried to convince then-acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen to back litigation specifically aimed at overturning Biden’s victory at the U.S. Supreme Court.

That information and other “critical” context, like being sanctioned for his work on behalf of Kari Lake in her failed 2022 election challenges, was not made clear in the affidavit,  Fulton County said.

“The Affidavit admits that the entire ‘criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen,’ but it conceals the fact that multiple courts have sanctioned Olsen for his unsubstantiated, speculative claims about elections,” the filing said, referring to Lake’s suit against Katie Hobbs.

The affidavit also did not “reveal” that the Trump administration’s witnesses are “hardly a collection of unbiased or credible experts.”

“[T]he Affidavit relies upon representations made by ‘Witness 7,’ whom the Atlanta Journal Constitution has identified as Kevin Moncla. But the Affidavit fails to disclose that Mr. Moncla was reportedly referred to the FBI in 2023 for sending threatening emails to members of the SEB and an aide to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger,” the filing continued. “Nor does the affidavit reveal that it relies on witnesses who, among other things, participated in Kari Lake’s failed efforts to contest the 2022 gubernatorial election in Arizona, and reportedly run a Telegram channel devoted to election conspiracies.”

Even leaving aside questions about the statute of limitations and whether there is a prosecutable crime, which Fulton County has said there isn’t, the affidavit’s reliance on “ifs” and a “possible cause” standard speaks for itself, documents concluded.

“It is woefully deficient for an affiant to say , the seized property would potentially be evidence of a crime,” Fulton County summarized (emphasis in original). “Probable cause requires more: a reasonable likelihood that a crime did, in fact, occur.”