'Fight fire with fire': Fulton County and Trump are locked in a new battle over 2020

Attorneys representing Fulton County faced off against the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court Friday, seeking the return of more than 650 boxes of 2020 election records that FBI agents seized from a county elections warehouse in January.

The hearing, which was held in a federal courthouse in Atlanta, was scheduled last week after the judge announced that attempts at mediation had been unsuccessful.

Justification for January’s raid, which was authorized by Magistrate Judge Catherine M. Salinas, relied heavily on recycled claims of irregularities during the 2020 election, which critics say have already been adjudicated or debunked in the nearly six years since the election took place.

Fulton County, which is home to much of the city of Atlanta, was also at the center of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia and other swing states.

Abbe Lowell, who represented the county, argued Friday that an affidavit used to justify the raid relied on inaccurate testimony, with witnesses who “completely misstate each of the alleged problems.” He also argued that Salinas was given incomplete information about the significance of documents like ballot images and double-scanned ballots, and that she may have reached a different conclusion if she had been given more accurate information.

Expert witness Ryan Macias, an election technology expert who served as an advisor for Fulton County during the 2020 election, also testified that the events outlined in the affidavit include routine mistakes and were not indicative of any intentional misconduct.

But attorney Michael Weisbuch, who represented the federal government, argued that federal agents who drafted the affidavit did include opposing perspectives and that the raid didn’t amount to a “callous disregard” of the county’s rights.

He also argued that Fulton County has access to copies of the election records and that county officials have yet to produce a compelling reason why they need the original documents returned.

Judge J. P. Boulee, a Trump appointee, did not say when he would issue a ruling in the case.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts expressed concern about the Trump administration attempting to take control over elections, and said the federal government could use similar tactics to seize election documents in other states.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this is a blueprint,” Pitts said. “If they’re successful here, in Fulton County, they will take this show on the road, and that’s why we’re going to fight fire with fire. We’re going to fight like hell to make sure that that does not happen.”