Trump director of election security sparked Georgia office raid, affidavit says
Kurt Olsen -- an attorney who fought to challenge the results of the 2020 election and was recently appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as the Director of Election Security and Integrity -- sent a referral that sparked last month's raid of a Georgia election site, according to an affidavit unsealed Tuesday.
FBI agentson Jan. 28 seized 700 boxescontaining ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election from Fulton County's Elections Hub and Operations Center after obtaining a search warrant. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there wasvoter fraudin the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss.
The raid was the result of allegations of election "deficiencies" on the part of Olsen's referral, according to the court document. Many of these issues were already investigated.
"If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be aviolation of federal law regardless of whether the failure to retain records or the deprivation of a fair tabulation of a vote was outcome determinative for any particular election or race," FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans said in the sworn affidavit, which was the basis for the search warrant that was issued by a magistrate judge.
"Following the November 3, 2020, presidential election, there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia. Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County," Evans said.
Georgia officials audited and certified the results following the election, and numerous lawsuits challenging the election results in the state were rejected by the courts.
Olsen has been involved in the effort to investigate election fraud claims since Trump lost the 2020 election.
He was sanctioned by a federal court in Arizona over an election lawsuit filed there, after the judge found he made "false" statements to the court. Olsen's conduct was also investigated by Special Counsel Jack Smith during his probe into Trump's election interference.
Olsen was appointed a special government employee last fall to investigate fraud claims, sources told ABC News. In his role, Olsen attends frequent meetings at the White House on election security and has been granted access to some classified materials, the sources said.
Among the allegations included in the affidavit were that Fulton County had failed to create a scanned image of each ballot, that some ballots were scanned multiple times, and that some ballot counts were inconsistent.
While the affidavit includes accounts from officials who previously investigated the claims, the application also relies on witnesses with limited direct knowledge who appear to speculate and occasionally contradict one another.
One Georgia resident, whose name is redacted in the affidavit, began "studying" the November 2020 election and filed a state election board complaint in July of 2022, alleging there were 17,852 missing ballot images from the reported results in the Secretary of State's website, the affidavit said.
Some of the witnesses cited in the affidavit are Republican members of the State Election Board and some do not have firsthand accounting of the ballot process, according to the documents.
The Georgia Secretary of State did not take the images of the ballots into account for the recount but instead used the physical copies of the ballots, the affidavit alleges.
"During a Civil Action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections admitted it has not preserved the majority of ballot images from in-person voting for the November 3, 2020, Original Count. This is another impediment to ruling out non-criminal explanations for the activities during the election," the court records say.
The investigation also centers around alleged missing "tabulator tapes" that aren't matching up and witnesses alleging they saw people printing out "random" ballots. It does not appear, based on the witness descriptions, that any were election or voting experts.
The search warrant -- which was approved by a Magistrate judge in the Northern District of Georgia -- covered all the physical ballots from the 2020 election, the tabulator tapes for every voting machine used in Fulton County, the entire 2020 voter roll, and any ballot images from the original vote count.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, a Trump nominee, on Sunday ordered the government to unseal the affidavit that was filed in support of the search warrant, subject to "the redaction of the names of non-governmental witnesses."
In his ruling, Boulee noted that the government did not oppose the unsealing of the affidavit, which could provide more information on the search and the investigation that led to it.
"During a Civil Action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections admitted it has not preserved the majority of ballot images from in-person voting for the November 3, 2020, Original Count. This is another impediment to ruling out non-criminal explanations for the activities during the election," the court records say.
The investigation also centers around alleged missing "tabulator tapes" that aren't matching up and witnesses alleging they saw people printing out "random" ballots. It does not appear, based on the witness descriptions, that any were election or voting experts.
The search warrant -- which was approved by a Magistrate judge in the Northern District of Georgia -- covered all the physical ballots from the 2020 election, the tabulator tapes for every voting machine used in Fulton County, the entire 2020 voter roll, and any ballot images from the original vote count.
Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts filed a motion seeking the unsealing of the affidavit, as well as the return of the election documents that were seized.
Pitt's office said Tuesday it was reviewing the affidavit and that he would hold a news conference in the afternoon.
Pitts had earlier said in a statement he was "pleased" with the judge's ruling.
"Fulton County will continue to pursue every legal option to seek the return of election records and to defend our elections from possible takeover," Pitts said. "Even in the midst of this unprecedented legal action, we will not allow our staff to be deterred or distracted from preparations for the 2026 election, which will be once again free, fair, transparent and legally compliant."
While the judge on Sunday ordered the release of the affidavit that was the basis for the search warrant, the warrant itself authorized the FBIto search for "All physical ballots from the 2020 General Election" in addition to tabulator tapes from voting machines and 2020 voter rolls, according to a copy of the warrant that was obtained by ABC Atlanta affiliate WSB following the raid.
The warrant said the material"constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense."
The warrant listed possible violations of two statutes -- one which requires election records to be retained for a certain amount of time, and another which outlines criminal penalties for people, including election officials, who intimidate voters or to knowingly procure false votes or false voter registrations.
