WASHINGTON — The FBI executed a search warrant at a Fulton County elections hub on Wednesday, seeking records related to the 2020 election, according to the county.
The FBI told NBC News that “conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity” at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, while the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office confirmed the activity and said that an “investigation into this matter is ongoing so there are no details that we can provide at the moment.”
“This operation is still actively underway,” Fulton County said their statement on Wednesday afternoon, declining to share more information.
State Sen. Josh McLaurin, a Democrat who represents Fulton County, called the search “extremely alarming.”
Speaking last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Donald Trump repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was “rigged,” and said that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”
Fulton County has been a fixation of Trump’s following his 2020 election loss in Georgia. In the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack, Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a phone call to “find 11,780 votes,” which was roughly Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state.
“Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County?” Trump told Raffensberger at the time. “Because that is what the rumor is.”
Raffensperger’s office declined to comment on Wednesday.
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss noted that Fulton County election workers received death threats after Trump’s false claims.
The Fulton County Election Hub opened in 2023. The Elections Department occupies “the largest area with more than 261,000 square feet dedicated to staff, operations, and equipment,” according to a post from the county government at the time.
Trump’s focus on Fulton County also dovetails with the state criminal case against him brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The case was dismissed after she was disqualified from prosecuting it amid conflict of interest allegations. Trump had pleaded not guilty and is now seeking more than $6.2 million in attorney fees and costs in connection with that investigation.
Two Georgia election workers who were smeared by Trump allies — Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss — were harassed and received a torrent of threats after they were falsely accused of participating in a voter fraud scheme. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who boosted Trump’s false election claims, accused the duo of passing USB drives “like vials of heroin or cocaine,” when in fact they were passing a ginger mint. The duo were awarded $148 million in damages after a 2023 trial, and Giuliani later satisfied the judgment in 2025.
Freeman and Moss, Smith told members of Congress in a deposition last month, “were people that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump targeted with absolutely false claims of election fraud” that “caused them to endure all these sort of vile threats.”
Juliette Arcodia contributed.
