Fulton County in Georgia took legal action on Wednesday demanding that the federal government return ballots and other election materials from the 2020 presidential contest that the F.B.I. seized last week.
The motion was filed under seal in federal court in Georgia, according to Jessica Corbitt, a spokeswoman for Fulton County. The motion also seeks the unsealing of the affidavit that was filed in support of the search warrant that allowed F.B.I. agents to conduct an extraordinary search of the county’s election headquarters.
Fulton County officials were expected to discuss the motion at a news conference on Wednesday morning.
The move follows a chaotic week in Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta and is Georgia’s most populous county, after F.B.I. agents conducted an extraordinary search and took away pallets of ballots and other materials.
Local officials were particularly alarmed and confused by the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, whose agency’s involvement in elections traditionally pertains only to foreign influence. The day after the search, she met with some of the agents who had participated and called Mr. Trump on her cellphone, The New York Times reported on Monday. After initially not picking up, he called back and spoke to them on speakerphone, asking them questions and praising and thanking them, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting.
Mr. Trump has continued to argue falsely that his 2020 election defeat was rigged, and members of his administration have made apparent efforts to search for evidence of widespread fraud in that year’s contest even though none has ever been found.
In a podcast interview released on Monday, Mr. Trump said that he wanted the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, an aggressive rhetorical step that signaled a desire to involve his administration in election matters. During the interview with Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director and a podcaster, Mr. Trump also called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.
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Democrats, election officials and voting rights experts have expressed worries about the developments and warned that the Trump administration might be laying the groundwork to intervene or cast doubt on this year’s midterm elections. The Constitution grants states the power to run elections, and Congress the ability to pass federal election laws, but the executive branch has no explicit authority over elections.
The scene in Fulton County last week, on a cold, cloudless, late Wednesday afternoon, was strange and tense. Legal observers from the American Civil Liberties Union stood around near the entrance, which was mobbed with reporters and news cameras. The news media was not allowed into the building, while government officials and F.B.I. agents came and went.
Three white box trucks were parked at a back entrance as evidence was rolled out. Officials in Fulton County said that more than 20 pallets of ballots, election tape and equipment had been seized, though they do not have a full inventory from the Justice Department, according to a Fulton County official.
The morning after the documents were seized, Robb Pitts, the chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said in a news conference that lawyers for the county had “carefully reviewed the search warrant and advised me and others that it was in the best interest of Fulton County to comply, which we did.”
But Mr. Pitts, a Democrat, vowed that the county would soon take action, noting the widespread concern among members of his party that information gleaned from the seized ballots would be used by Georgia’s Republican-dominated state election board to take over the Fulton County elections office. Fulton County is a Democratic stronghold.
“We will not give one inch to those who seek to take control of elections in Fulton County — not today, not tomorrow, not ever,” Mr. Pitts said. “We’re going to fight this in court with every resource we have.”
Nick Corasaniti is a Times reporter covering national politics, with a focus on voting and elections.
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