ATLANTA — The Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a raid at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center.
Around Noon, FBI agents and their evidence recovery team showed up at the Union City facility around 12 p.m. on Wednesday with a warrant signed by a federal magistrate judge out of the Northern District of Georgia.
Fulton County confirmed through a statement that the FBI is seizing records from the 2020 election.
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“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center. The warrant sought a number of records related to 2020 elections.
“This operation is still actively underway. We cannot provide further information at this time.”
Channel 2’s Richard Elliot has learned the agents could remove upwards of 700 boxes of election records from the facility.
It is believed that Wednesday’s action may have to do with the DOJ lawsuit filed against Fulton County last month, but we can’t be sure because the warrant that was served is sealed.
Fulton County Clerk Che Alexander told Elliot that she has not seen any warrant, even though legally she is the keeper of records.
Atlanta Democratic state Sen. Josh McLaurin went inside the facility and took video and photos.
While shocked by what was unfolding, he told Elliot that he’s not at all surprised.
“I’m not surprised because I thought this would probably come at some point. What does this tell you about where the Trump administration is going?” McLaurin said.
Salleigh Grubbs is the newest member of the Fulton County Election Board and the Republican representative there.
She said she’s happy the FBI was there.
“My reaction to the FBI? I mean, I think the FBI is going to do their job, and I think it’s about time that the people have answers. And so, you know, we’re just here to see what’s happening. Just to observe,” Grubbs said.
Elliot also learned that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Deputy FBI Director Andrew Bailey are expected to be at the facility around 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
You can read the full search warrant below.
Trump’s belief that 2020 election was rigged
For years, President Donald Trump and his close allies have pushed unproven allegations that the 2020 election was rigged in Georgia.
During that election, Fulton County utilized State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta as a place to count ballots.
Surveillance video from the counting site ended up being used to help support unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud by President Trump and his allies.
The first mention of the video came during a state Senate committee hearing following the election, where Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the video showed election workers throwing Republicans out of the room and counting “suitcases” of illegal ballots in the middle of the night.
“I think that today revealed the smoking gun we’ve been looking for. The video makes it clear,” Giuliani told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot following the first day of those hearings. “They took ballots from under a table and counted them in the middle of the night. This is what they were doing all throughout the country. Luckily, there is now a tape of it.”
After the hearing, “(Trump) issued a tweet amplifying the knowingly false claims made in (the) presentation in Georgia: ‘Wow! Blockbuster testimony taking place right now in Georgia. Ballot stuffing by the Dems when Republicans were forced to leave the large counting room. Plenty more coming, but this alone leads to an easy win of the State!’” a federal indictment handed up against Trump said.
At another Georgia House hearing days later, Giuliani once again showed the video, saying it showed “voter fraud right in front of people’s eyes” and was “the tip of the iceberg,” the federal indictment said.
During this hearing, Giuliani called out two Fulton County election workers by name, mother and daughter Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, accusing them of “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine,” and said their homes should have been searched for evidence of ballots and USB ports, the Aug. 1 indictment said.
Following the hearing, the video and all of the claims were quickly investigated and debunked by federal and state investigators.
The Secretary of State’s Office even walked Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray through the full video from State Farm Arena, frame-by-frame.
“No magically-appearing ballots,” Gabriel Sterling with the Secretary of State’s office said. “These were ballots that were processed in front of the monitors, and placed there in front of the monitors.”
Even with the allegations made by Giuliani being found to be untrue, Trump repeatedly stated that there was election fraud throughout Georgia, the August indictment said.
The document said on Dec. 8, 2020, a senior campaign advisor of Trump’s “expressed frustration that many of [an unnamed co-conspirator’s] and his legal team’s claims could not be substantiated.”
That same advisor also had this to say about the State Farm Arena video in an email mentioned in the indictment: “When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases.”
After the hearings, Freeman and Moss received death threats and were even forced to leave their home.
Channel 2 Action News went to Washington, D.C., as the women testified before the Jan. 6 Committee in 2022.
“She called me screaming at the top of her lungs, ‘Shaye, Shaye! Oh my God, Shaye!’ Just freaking me out,” Moss testified.
“I had to move out of my house because the FBI said it wasn’t safe,” Freeman testified before the committee.
Freeman said statements Giuliani made turned their lives upside down.
“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere,” she testified. “All because a group of people, starting with No. 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani, decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye.”
In June 2023, the state elections board found no evidence of fraud during the 2020 ballot counting site at the State Farm Arena.
It also cleared Freeman and Moss of any wrongdoing.
The women sued Giuliani for defamation and won, with a Washington, D.C. jury finding that he needed to pay $148 million after promoting lies about the women.
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