A newly launched timeline from the Justice Department reveals the FBI seized 2020 election supplies from Georgia just some weeks after opening a criminal probe, which specialists instructed NCS is an unusually quick tempo for a case of its form.
The timeline, filed on Friday, was offered by the Justice Department following an order from District Judge Jean-Paul Boulee, who requested the DOJ to provide additional info on the inception of the FBI’s criminal investigation into the Fulton County elections facility.
Fulton County officers have recommended in courtroom filings the criminal investigation seems to be a “pretext to acquire records that this Administration was unable to quickly secure via the civil litigation process.”
But the Justice Department has argued that idea is “nonsensical for multiple reasons” and that the county had not met the excessive bar required for ordering the seized materials be returned. The division has additionally argued in courtroom filings that the federal authorities “used criminal process to get the records—a higher burden than obtaining them through civil process.”
Weeks of proceedings within the ongoing lawsuit — filed by Futon County officers searching for the return of poll supplies — predate the timeline launch. And the federal authorities’s earlier civil litigation started final yr.
In December, the Justice Department sued Fulton County, searching for information associated to the 2020 election as efforts continued to show President Donald Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him.
In the lawsuit, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division alleged the Atlanta-area county didn’t adjust to a subpoena issued by the Georgia State Elections Board for its “used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election.”
In the Friday submitting, the Justice Department notes that Kurt Olsen, a 2020 election denier now serving within the White House who made the referral that launched the criminal probe, formally did so on January 5, 2026, at 9:03 a.m. At 8:36 p.m. that very same day, the movement to dismiss the civil litigation was filed, the Justice Department mentioned.
The DOJ mentioned the supervisor to agent Hugh Raymond Evans, who was assigned to the case, opened an “assessment” on January 6, 2026. Six days later, Evans requested the matter be opened to a full investigation, and on January 14, the particular agent in cost of the FBI’s Atlanta area workplace permitted the request.
The submitting asserts that Evans drafted the investigative abstract, which precedes a search warrant, on January 19, earlier than it was formally transformed right into a warrant affidavit on January 22. The FBI then served a warrant on the elections workplace in Fulton County on January 28 — 23 days after the criminal probe launched.
NCS Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe, who beforehand served because the deputy director of the FBI, instructed NCS that whereas timelines of investigations can fluctuate, in his 21-year profession with the company, he has by no means seen a state of affairs wherein the federal government initiated a criminal case on a matter that was at present the topic of a civil case.
“This all happened very quickly, particularly for a case like this, which I think raises the question very legitimately, why was this such a priority?” McCabe mentioned.
McCabe additionally mentioned “political pressure” might be the motivation behind the FBI’s resolution to maneuver quickly on the probe, particularly as a result of he’s traditionally seen this kind of fast turnaround on drug instances wherein proof may disappear. The proof, or ballots on this case, McCabe mentioned, isn’t going anyplace.
Michael Moore, who served because the US legal professional for the Middle District of Georgia below President Barack Obama, echoed McCabe’s feedback on the probe’s unusually quick cadence.
Moore instructed NCS the pace in shifting from formal referral to look warrant was “pretty expeditious” and “not the kind of thing you typically see.”
Moore mentioned he discovered the tempo of the probe uncommon as a result of the case didn’t seem to cope with “matters of life and limb,” which might have defined the urgency to maneuver ahead with a search warrant.
NCS has reached out to the DOJ for remark. The FBI, upon receiving the request for remark, referred NCS to the Justice Department.
Boulee, appointed by Trump throughout his first time period, should resolve whether or not all of Fulton County’s election supplies should be returned.
Georgia is one of several states the place 2020 election skeptics have ascended to state and native authorities perches, from which they’ve continued to forged doubt on Trump’s defeat, regardless of quite a few critiques confirming the result. As Trump has pushed his administration into taking sweeping and legally dubious actions to get extra concerned in election administration, the Fulton County poll seizure shows how that effort can piggyback on the work of election deniers who’ve enmeshed themselves inside the paperwork of operating elections.
The FBI’s seizure of 2020 election supplies in Georgia – together with the president’s latest calls to “nationalize” voting – has fueled issues amongst some state election officers of federal intrusion on this yr’s midterms.
The administration has actively sought to play a job in election capabilities reserved for state and native officers, together with an enormous drive by Trump’s Justice Department to realize entry to every state’s full voter rolls, together with non-public info akin to partial Social Security numbers and dates of beginning.