F.B.I. agents executed a search warrant Wednesday at an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, in an apparent escalation of the administration’s efforts to investigate a jurisdiction that President Trump has continued to criticize over his 2020 defeat in that state.
Even as the F.B.I. acknowledged that agents had searched the election hub and operations center in Fulton County, a spokesperson declined to say what material was taken, citing an open investigation.
The action comes a month after the Trump administration sued Fulton County, seeking access to seize and inspect old ballots from the 2020 election.
Fulton County, which is largely nonwhite and voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Biden, was one of the main focuses of Mr. Trump’s effort to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. After leaving office, Mr. Trump and some of his allies were criminally charged with election interference in Georgia, and the former president was booked at the Fulton County jail.
Some discrepancies in Fulton County’s recount process did emerge after the 2020 election, but the state’s Republican leadership ultimately affirmed Mr. Biden’s victory there. Mr. Trump then pressured Georgia’s top elections official to “find” him enough votes to overturn his loss in the state.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, a conservative activist who runs the Justice Department’s civil rights division, subpoenaed Fulton County’s 2020 ballots in October, but the county resisted turning them over. As part of its civil lawsuit in December, the Justice Department accused county officials of violating the Civil Rights Act by not handing over the ballots.
Earlier this month, President Trump vowed to arrest people in connection with what he claimed was voter fraud in 2020. “People will soon be prosecuted for what they did,” he said.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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