Materials Sought in Fulton County FBI Warrant Revealed – A Difficult Road Lies Ahead for Fulton County Officials
On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit reported that the FBI executed a search warrant against Fulton County, and also that the likely target of that warrant pertained to reports filed by citizen investigators whose persistence since the 2020 election was finally acknowledged by federal investigators.
The warrant was later made public and should be of grave concern for those responsible for administering and retaining records related to the 2020 election.
The warrant was issued by a magistrate judge in Atlanta on Wednesday at 2:31p.m. for evidence of violations of 52 U.S.C 20701 and 52 U.S.C 20511. The former, 20701, is the federal records retention law related to elections that requires states to "retain and preserve, for a period of twenty-two months" all records "requisite to voting."
The latter, 20511, is a statute related specifically to fraud. The statute makes illegal 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."
The attached affidavit that outlines materials and items to be seized includes all physical paper ballots and envelopes, all tabulator tapes for every voting machine used, all ballot images created during the initial count on November 3, 2020, and the following recounts, and the voter rolls used during the 2020 election to issue ballots.
Here’s the warrant https://t.co/arFLpV4ldu pic.twitter.com/q67dSEgV9H
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) January 28, 2026
Ballot Images
Several of these items will be difficult to produce, considering sworn declarations submitted in the federal case Curling v Raffensperger and responses given to open records requests submitted by citizens and journalists beginning almost immediately after the 2020 election.
Dr. Philip Stark, a UC Berkeley professor, submitted a sworn affidavit that stated there were 376,863 missing ballot images from the original count in Fulton County, which, according to Dr. Stark, makes it impossible to audit the 2020 election.
In Georgia, the original machine count conducted on November 3, 2020, was not the certified count. The ensuing machine count reported on December 3, 2020, was used to certify the vote. Stark stated that 17,852 votes were missing ballot images from the certified count in his declaration.
The 17,852 missing ballot images were corroborated by SEB Complaint 2023-025, which is what then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene used to call for a formal investigation in Fulton County in September 2025.
Further, each ballot image created by the Dominion tabulator creates a SHA file, a hash validation code that can be used to authenticate that a ballot image is the original unedited image. Of the 148,318 ballot images created from mail-in ballots in Fulton County, only 16,034 SHA files were retained.
Physical Ballots
The physical paper ballots have been a mythical creature in Georgia, especially in Fulton County, eluding investigation since 2021. Garland Favorito's VoterGA.org filed a lawsuit in Georgia shortly after the 2020 election. The case was abruptly dismissed on procedural grounds, specifically claiming the plaintiffs did not have standing.
Following a December 2022 decision from the Georgia Supreme Court that granted the plaintiffs standing and remanded it back to the lower courts, the case sat in limbo for over 1,130 days waiting to be assigned to a judge.
The Georgia State Election Board has submitted several subpoenas seeking to obtain the physical ballots for investigation. It wasn't until a decision last month from Judge Robert McBurney that records sought in the subpoena were ordered to be turned over to the Board. However, physical ballots were notably absent from the order.
The Gateway Pundit also reported that in May 2021, the warehouse that was storing the physical paper ballots under the guard of the Fulton County Sheriff's Office was left wide open for two hours. Twenty minutes after the sheriff's two patrol cars left the parking lot, the facility's alarm went off.
Tabulator Tapes
The Gateway Pundit has also reported on the missing tabulator tapes throughout Fulton County. The Dominion Voting tabulators and scanners create several poll tapes throughout the voting process. The first tape produced is called a "Zero Tape" and is used to ensure that there are no ballots currently stored in the system's memory prior to an election event beginning.
Of the 148 tabulators used for advance voting, only nine Zero Tapes were produced. The Deputy County Attorney, Steve Rosenberg, claimed that the Zero Tapes were "old-style receipts" and had become "almost completely faded" due to a number of open records requests for them.
He also claimed that the Secretary of State's Office maintained the originals (it is actually required to be held by the Superior Court, not the Secretary of State).
The "completely faded" claim fell short on two fronts. First, if the tapes faded because of being handled to fulfill other requests, the files/images shared in those fulfilled requests could have simply been forwarded or reused to fulfill future requests.
Second, if the Secretary of State (or Superior Court) had the originals, Fulton County likely maintained a photocopy or digital copy for its own record retention.
In addition to the Zero Tapes, none of the closing tapes produced had the required signatures from the poll manager and two witnesses. This accounted for over 315,000 ballots in Fulton County with a crucial link missing in the chain of custody.
Further, the closing tapes that were provided, unsigned, were created on just 16 tabulators that were not deployed for advance voting, and done so at the English Street warehouse. That warehouse, at the time, was filled with Dominion employees that were contracted to conduct a Logic and Accuracy test following a COVID outbreak in the warehouse in mid-October 2020 and were retained for the remainder of the election and beyond.
The FBI concluded its search warrant Wednesday evening and began to transport over 700 boxes of material north to Virginia. Notably, State Election Board Vice Chair Dr. Jan Johnston and Salleigh Grubbs, the newest member of the Board, were forbidden access to the warehouse during the execution of the warrant as impartial observers.
BREAKING NEWS: The FBI just seized 2020 election ballots from the Fulton County, Georgia Election Center.
The Deputy Director of the FBI is on scene,and DNI Tulsi Gabbard is expected to arrive soon, according to Heather Mullins @TalkMullins.
An FBI mobile command center has… https://t.co/06j6UzA3QN pic.twitter.com/03M9kgBrSP
— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) January 29, 2026
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