Georgia Ballot Inquiry Originated With Election Denier in Trump White House

An F.B.I. search warrant affidavit unsealed on Tuesday shows that a criminal investigation into 2020 election results in Fulton County, Ga., was set off by a leading election denier in the Trump administration and relied heavily on claims about ballots that have been widely debunked.

The unsealing of the affidavit in Fulton County is likely to raise more questions about the Trump administration’s use of the F.B.I. and Justice Department to revive old, largely disproved claims about the 2020 election in the state, which President Trump narrowly lost.

“The FBI criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity,” the affidavit said. Mr. Olsen played a central role in Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, including speaking to the president multiple times on Jan. 6, 2021. He has continued to push false claims about elections, and was recently appointed to a key role in the Trump administration.

The affidavit for the search in Georgia, where F.B.I. agents seized ballots and other materials from an election center last month, draws a clearer line between the White House and the movement of Trump-supporting election activists who refuse to believe he lost the 2020 presidential contest.

“The affidavit is a total rehash of rejected and debunked claims from five years ago,” David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that advises election officials, wrote in a text message.

He added that there was “not a single allegation of a foreign nexus or foreign interference,” nodding to the fact that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was present for the search in Fulton County.

Her appearance there had raised questions, given that her agency’s role in elections extends only to foreign interference, but The New York Times reported this week that Mr. Trump had told her to investigate the 2020 vote: “You go do that, you get it done.” The day after the search, Ms. Gabbard arranged a call between Mr. Trump and F.B.I. agents in which he praised and thanked them for their work on the inquiry, The Times reported.

Many of the claims in the affidavit refer to long-held — and consistently debunked — conspiracy theories about elections in Georgia, including arguments about fraudulent and duplicate absent ballots, election machine tabulator tapes and missing ballot images.

The warrant for the search of an election center in Fulton County, which F.B.I. agents carried out late last month, demanded all physical ballots from the 2020 election, as well as all ballot images, tabulator tapes for Fulton County’s voting machines, and copies of voter rolls from that year.

Robb Pitts, the chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said at a news conference last week that the Justice Department did not give local officials an inventory of what was taken.

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“We don’t even have copies of what they took, so it’s a problem,” Mr. Pitts said. The county estimated that the F.B.I. seized 656 boxes of “original documents and records from the 2020 election,” according to its motion to unseal the affidavit. Another official estimated that the number was closer to 700 boxes.

Fulton County has long been a focus of the election denial movement that exploded after the 2020 presidential contest, with Mr. Trump and his allies targeting Georgia after his loss there. He pressured the state’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to win, and he has continued to promote debunked conspiracy theories about Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta.

At least 11 lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results in Georgia have been filed, according to Fulton County court records; none have proved that there was widespread fraud or malfeasance.

In a court filing last week, Fulton County pointed to the many debunked conspiracy theories and previous investigations as a reason that the affidavit should be unsealed.

“The continued perpetuation of these unfounded allegations sows distrust around both judicial and electoral processes in Fulton County and the state of Georgia,” the county wrote. “Transparency is necessary to ensure public knowledge and confidence. At a minimum, the public has a right to know what its government is doing.”

Mr. Pitts, a Democrat, also said in the filing that he feared the search in Fulton County could suppress turnout in future elections.

“Knowing that the federal government can physically seize and rummage through election records, long after the election has been certified, will predictably chill voter participation and undermine voters’ confidence in the security and secrecy of their ballots,” he said.

Democrats and election officials across the country have monitored the events in Fulton County with apprehension, as some worry that Mr. Trump might direct the Justice Department to search election centers in other cities or counties as well. Elections have long been conducted by state authorities, with minimal involvement from the federal government.

Last week, Mr. Trump called in a podcast interview for the Republican Party to “nationalize” elections. He later told reporters in the Oval Office that “the federal government should get involved” in elections, and cited a list of cities where he claimed there was voter fraud in 2020. (There is no evidence of widespread fraud in any of these places.)

“Take a look at Detroit,” Mr. Trump said. “Take a look at Pennsylvania. Take a look at Philadelphia. You go take a look at Atlanta. Look at some of the places that, horrible corruption on elections, and the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved.”

Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.

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