An introduction by former Trump campaign lawyer Kurt Olsen led to a recent FBI investigation that resulted in the seizure of 2020 election ballots from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, newly unsealed federal court documents revealed Tuesday.
The document is an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans, who said the FBI is conducting a criminal investigation into “whether the alleged irregularities” that occurred in Fulton County’s voting process and counting operations in 2020 were “intentional acts in violation of federal criminal law.”
“The FBI’s criminal investigation stemmed from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, the President’s appointee to the Director of Election Security and Integrity,” the affidavit in U.S. District Court in Atlanta said.
Olsen worked on efforts to overturn President Donald Trump’s loss to former President Joe Biden after the 2020 election.
Evans’ affidavit was filed by federal prosecutors as part of a petition asking a federal judge to sign a search warrant for the election center. Olsen was reportedly hired last fall to investigate election issues.
The affidavit was ordered unsealed by Atlanta federal judge J.P. Bouley, a Trump appointee, after the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and the chairman of the county’s Board of Registration and Elections sued the federal government over the seizure of ballots and sought their return.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was also at the election center on January 28 when FBI agents raided the center and seized ballots.
Gabbard’s presence and the raid itself have been heavily criticized by Democratic lawmakers and others who worry that it is undermining confidence in the upcoming midterm elections while reviving long-discredited claims that President Donald Trump actually won Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
Gabbard said she was at the election center at President Trump’s direction. Meanwhile, the president said Gabbard was there at the “strong request” of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Alex Padilla of California and Mark Warner of Virginia, asked Gabbard to immediately schedule an intelligence briefing for senators on election security concerns ahead of the midterm elections.
“This request comes amid an unprecedented investigation by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that purports to address election vulnerabilities and ‘evidence’ of manipulation of election results, which have not been substantiated,” the senator’s office said in a statement.
A warrant signed by a Georgia magistrate authorizes the FBI to seize all physical ballots for the 2020 Fulton County general election, including absentee ballots. Tally tapes for all voting machines. And the votes come from the county.
“Following the November 3, 2020 presidential election, there were numerous allegations of election fraud related to the voting process and vote counting in Fulton County, Georgia,” the affidavit signed by FBI Agent Evans states.
“Some of these allegations have been disproven, while others have been vindicated, including through Fulton County’s admissions,” Evans wrote.
The agent said the investigation focuses on several “deficiencies or deficiencies” in the 2020 election and vote counting.
“The tabulation machines used in Fulton County are designed to create and store a scanned image of each ballot,” Evans wrote. “Fulton County has acknowledged that it does not have scanned images of all 528,777 votes counted during the original count or 527,925 votes counted during the recount.”
“Fulton County has confirmed that some ballots were scanned multiple times during the vote recount,” the agent wrote. “The ballot image released in response to a public records request shows a ballot with duplicate unique markings within the ballot image.”
Evans also said that auditors who were counting votes by hand reported a number of votes that did not match the actual number of votes in the batch, and that Fulton County reported two different numbers at the deadline to report recount results and the day after.
“If these deficiencies were the result of intentional acts, the failure to maintain records or deprive the fair counting of votes, even those that determined the outcome of a particular election or race, would constitute a violation of federal law,” the affidavit said.
