WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – The FBI is executing a search warrant at a Fulton County election office outside Atlanta related to an investigation into possible interference in Georgia in the 2020 U.S. presidential election lost by President Donald Trump, according to the FBI and a law enforcement official familiar with the matter.
FBI agents were searching the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City, the agency said in a statement, a facility that state officials opened in 2023.
Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, including winning in Georgia. Trump returned to the White House for a second term last year after winning the 2024 election.
Representatives for Fulton County’s election office referred queries to the county’s external affairs office, which did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The U.S. Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The Democratic-leaning county is home to Atlanta, Georgia’s biggest city, and backed Biden by a wide margin in the 2020 election.
Trump unsuccessfully sought to overturn the election result, pressuring the state’s top election official to “find” him votes that would allow him to claim victory. Earlier this month he asked a state court for $6.2 million in legal fees he said he spent fighting criminal charges of election interference filed by the county’s chief prosecutor, District Attorney Fani Willis.
The prosecution of Trump by Willis for alleged racketeering foundered after revelations that she had a romantic relationship with one of the lawyers she hired, and the case was dismissed last year. The New York Times reported last year that the U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas for records related to Willis.
Under Trump, the Justice Department has also sued several states, demanding that they turn over large volumes of voter data. States have challenged the demands as an unconstitutional infringement on their authority to manage elections. A few judges have tossed out the lawsuits, most recently this week in Oregon.
(Reporting by Jana Winter, additional reporting by Costas Pitas, Bhargav Acharya, Susan Heavey and Andy Sullivan; editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)
