{"id":313603,"date":"2025-12-13T08:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/313603\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T08:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T08:57:07","slug":"trump-administration-sues-georgia-county-for-2020-ballot-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/313603\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration sues Georgia county for 2020 ballot records"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/crt\/media\/1420721\/dl?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the lawsuit, external<\/a>, the justice department sent a subpoena to Fulton County election officials in October demanding the ballot materials, citing a need to investigate &#8220;compliance with federal election law&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a statement on Friday,  Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said that states must protect against &#8220;vote dilution&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws,&#8221; she said.. &#8220;If states will not fulfil their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The county did not immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After losing the 2020 election to Biden, Trump alleged widespread fraud. Numerous courts<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/judges-trump-election-lawsuits\/2020\/12\/12\/e3a57224-3a72-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> rejected the legal challenges brought by his campaigns and allies., external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Georgia, particularly Fulton County and the greater Atlanta region, became a focal point of Trump&#8217;s challenges to the 2020 election results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After the election<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-us-2020-55524838\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">, Trump called Georgia&#8217;s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger <\/a>and told him, &#8220;I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Raffensperger, whose office oversees Georgia&#8217;s elections and certifies results, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-us-2020-55006188\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">confirmed that Biden won the state <\/a>even after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-us-2020-55224511\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">multiple reviews.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His office declined to comment on the justice department&#8217;s lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Later, it was in Fulton County that Trump was criminally charged in connection with a scheme to overturn the state&#8217;s election results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis brought an unsuccessful racketeering case against him <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-66505804\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">alleging he led a criminal conspiracy to undermine Georgia&#8217;s election results. <\/a>Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in August 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/czxpd8pv4gyo\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A judge dismissed the case earlier this month<\/a>, after a series of procedural blows hampered the prosecution and Trump&#8217;s return to the White House in 2025 put the case on ice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Georgia election interference case was once considered the most threatening of Trump&#8217;s four criminal indictments, because he could not pardon himself from state-level charges if he returned to office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to the lawsuit, external, the justice department sent a subpoena to Fulton County election officials in October&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-313603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}