| | | About the Search Warrant for the Fulton County Elections Office
A few general observations based on the limited information we have tonight.
Search warrants are issued only in criminal cases in federal court. So this is a criminal investigation. The Judge who signed the warrant is a Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of Georgia.
As a general matter, search warrants must be obtained from a judge in the district where the search is to take place. But the investigation can be located in a different district. Late in 2025 there was a public filing of the intention to impanel a new GJ in the Southern District of Florida, Fort Pierce Division on January 12, 2026. Grand juries are not needed to issue a search warrant, but a Grand Jury subpoenas are very commonly used to gather evidence that is then used to establish probable cause in a search warrant. The Fort Pierce Division includes West Palm Beach, the location of Mar A Lago.
It has been widely reported that an investigation was commenced in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida examining a variety of efforts over many years to prevent Donald Trump from winning elections to the Office of the Presidency. Some have speculated -- including me -- that a variety of conspiracy claims could be used reach back to investigate many POTENTIALLY related efforts beyond what would normally be a five year statute of limitations for most federal crimes.
An application for a search warrant lays out alleged facts which the Govt believes supports probable cause that one or more crimes has been committed, and the "fruits or instrumentalities" of such crimes will be found at the location to be searched. The Affidavit is normally sealed and not made public so as to not disclose information that has been gathered thus far.
But the face of the Affidavit does give some clues because it must state what crimes are being investigated -- not necessarily everything, but at least one crime for which there is probable cause.
The face of today's Warrant concludes there is PC to believe violations of two statutes are established by the Affidavit -- Title 52 Sec. 20701 and 20511.
Title 52 is the Federal Election Code.
Chapter 207 is titled "Federal Election Records"
Sec. 20701 is captioned "Retention and preservation of records and papers by officers of elections."
Chapter 205 is titled "National Voter Registration"
Sec. 20511 is captioned "Criminal Penalties."
Section 20701 is, as the title suggests, primarily a record keeping statute, the violation of which is a misdemeanor. It basically requires the retention for 22 months of "all records and papers ... relating to any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting...."
This is not a ballot retention statute. Because of subject matter of the second statute, I believe the focus for the first statute is on the "application" and "registration" records.
Section 20511 has two main subsections -- (1) and (2).
Subsection (1) involves intimidating, threatening, or coercing another person to register to vote, vote, or attempt to register or vote; urging or aiding any person to register to vote, to vote, or to attempt to register or vote; or exercising any right under this chapter.
The allegations of "fraudulent" voting in Fulton County don't seem consistent with a statute that requires "intimidation," "threats" or "coercion" so I SUSPECT Sec. (1) is not the focus.
But Subsection (2) is more intriguing -- it makes it a crime for any person, including an election official, in federal election to:
"(2) knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a
State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by —
(A) the procurement or submission of voter registration applications that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the
State in which the election is held; or
(B) the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held,
Violation of Sec. 20511 is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
As noted in the first statute, the obligation to hold onto the Registration records was only 22 months -- but due to several civil lawsuits filed in the aftermath of the 2020 election, it is likely that Georgia ordered all the counties to not destroy the records.
Keep in mind that various lawsuits filed around the time of the election were all dismissed or abandoned on the basis that there was insufficient evidence of "outcome determinative" fraud.
A criminal investigation into fraudulent registrations or fraudulent cast or counted ballots does NOT require that there be the potential of finding "outcome determinative" fraud.
To get the search warrant the DOJ needed to convince a federal judge there was some evidence of a violation of the statutes. That could be achieved with evidence that registration materials were purposely destroyed earlier than the 22 month requirement in Sec. 20701.
As to Sec. 20511, the evidence would have to show probable cause to believe that persons - including Fulton County Election Officials -- procured or submitted materially false voter registration applications.
Another document released today was the "Items To Be Seized" attachment to the warrant. In this document we learned:
The alleged violations took place after Oct. 12, 2020. That is an AWFULLY SPECIFIC DATE -- which strongly suggests to me that SOMEBODY has cooperated and given specific information to the investigators.
The Items to be seized also includes all ballots, including absentee ballots, provisional ballots, election-day registration ballots, and any ballot that was used to cast a vote that was counted.
The warrant also allows seizure of all tabulator records and other electronic vote counting data.
That's what I can glean from the warrant paperwork that was made available to the public today. |
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