STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The FBI has taken possession of hundreds of thousands of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia. That's one of the big news stories today. Fulton County includes most of Atlanta. It was a hub of baseless fraud claims from the 2020 election. At one point after his election defeat, President Trump called a Georgia official and was heard on tape asking him to, quote, "find" exactly enough extra votes for Trump to win by one.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Nationwide, thousands of election officials from both parties certified Trump's defeat in 2020. His own allies conducted an extended audit in Arizona and admitted finding no evidence to change the results. The seizure of Georgia ballots has people worried about this year's elections. In a few minutes, we'll hear from the chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, but first, some details of what the FBI took.
INSKEEP: We've called NPR's Stephen Fowler, who is in Atlanta and has covered this story for years and years. Hi there, Stephen.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What exactly happened in Fulton County?
FOWLER: Well, the FBI now has about 650-ish boxes worth of stuff from Fulton County's 2020 election. Earlier this week, there was a judge who signed off on a search warrant, then asked where all the ballots, tabulator tapes, the scanned images of the ballots and all copies of voter rolls from that election. Several trucks came in to take them away late Wednesday night. And I live in Fulton County. I voted here in 2020, so they have my ballot, Steve. And the Republican-led state election board took the county to court last year, trying to access these ballots and records. While that was playing out, the Department of Justice also sued over these records. So now, somehow, we are here with this seizure.
INSKEEP: OK. We know that the Justice Department is now doing whatever Trump feels like telling them to do, but they seem to have gone to a judge, you say. So what evidence did investigators give for seizing voting material?
FOWLER: We don't know. That's because the warrant mentions an FBI affidavit, but that's under seal. In the search warrant, there are two criminal laws mentioned. One of them about counting of ballots that are fraudulent. The other has to do with keeping records of an election for two years after it's over. The FBI hasn't answered any of our questions. And I will note, we are more than five years after this election. So there are also questions about the statute of limitations.
INSKEEP: You mentioned a state lawsuit. There's the federal lawsuit. There's been a lot of action around Fulton County for years, right?
FOWLER: Well, the only reason these records are available to be seized by the FBI is because a court ordered them kept under seal because of numerous lawsuits making fantastical and unproven allegations of fraud in Georgia's most populous county that's also heavily Democratic. And I covered this election and its aftermath firsthand, which has included five years of constant false claims about how Fulton County ran its election, like workers pulling out suitcases of ballots to accusations that any ballot that wasn't cast on Election Day was somehow fake or illegitimate. Also, it's one of several places where Trump faced criminal charges for his efforts to overturn that election, though that case was dropped at the end of last year.
INSKEEP: Why was Tulsi Gabbard, not at a law enforcement official, but the director of National Intelligence, seen at the site of the ballot seizure?
FOWLER: Well, it's not something you would think it's in her purview, but the White House says Gabbard is playing a key role in making sure an election, quote, "can never, ever be rigged again." At the same time, the Trump administration is inserting itself in elections in other ways, like suing states for unredacted voter rolls and using data from other government agencies, like Social Security, to find evidence of noncitizen voting, which evidence has shown to be incredibly rare. All of this action by the Trump administration is ratcheting up tensions with state and local election officials who worry about what other steps the government might take in this midterm year.
INSKEEP: NPR political reporter Stephen Fowler is in Atlanta. Stephen, thanks so much.
FOWLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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