Sanctioned election lawyer Olsen orchestrates FBI seizure of Georgia ballots

FBI agents descended on the Fulton County Elections Hub in Union City, 🍑Georgia, on Jan. 28, 2026, and spent approximately nine hours seizing roughly 700 boxes. Those boxes held every physical ballot cast in Fulton County in 2020, along with electronic ballot images, tabulator tapes from every voting machine, and the county's complete voter rolls. The materials were transported to the FBI Central Records Complex in 🏛️Virginia.

The warrant originated with a referral from KOKurt Olsen, Trump's White House director of election security and integrity. Olsen is a 63-year-old former Navy SEAL who joined the Trump administration as a special government employee in October 2025 after working to overturn Trump's 2020 losses in 🍑Georgia and other swing states. He has no prior experience in intelligence or federal law enforcement.

Before joining the Trump White House, Olsen was sanctioned by a federal district court judge for making 'false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions' in a lawsuit on behalf of Kari Lake, and he was separately admonished by the 🌵Arizona Supreme Court for making 'unequivocally false' claims about 35,000 ballots. Those sanctions totaled $122,200 against Olsen and his co-counsel.

The FBI's 23-page affidavit, unsealed Feb. 10, cited alleged irregularities in Fulton County's 2020 ballot handling — but omitted that 🍑Georgia's own secretary of state investigators had already examined those same claims and concluded the 'findings do not affect the accuracy of the results of the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.' The state found sloppy procedures but no fraud and issued only a letter of reprimand.

🍑Georgia certified the 2020 results three separate times under Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: a full hand recount of all ballots, a machine recount requested by the Trump campaign, and a signature audit. All three confirmed Biden won the state. The highest county-level error rate in any recount was 0.73%, and most counties found zero change.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appeared outside the Fulton County elections hub during the raid and, according to ABC News sources, arranged a phone call between the FBI agents executing the search warrant and President Trump, who addressed the agents and praised their 'professionalism and great work.' Gabbard said Trump personally asked her to attend. DNI is legally prohibited from participating in domestic law enforcement.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Gabbard's presence 'a violation of longstanding norms' and said a sitting president personally involving himself in a criminal investigation tied to an election he lost was 'inappropriate.' Trump initially told attendees of the National Prayer Breakfast that it was Attorney General Pam Bondi who 'insisted' Gabbard oversee the raid — then later shifted his account.

Fulton County Chair RPRobb Pitts filed suit demanding immediate return of the ballots and called the raid 'designed to intimidate' voters. In a court filing, Pitts argued the FBI showed 'callous disregard' for First and Fourth Amendment rights and that knowing the government can seize election records long after a certified election will predictably 'chill voter participation and undermine voters' confidence in the secrecy of their ballots.'

On Feb. 16, the NAACP, the 🍑Georgia NAACP, and the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agenda filed a motion asking the federal court to bar the Justice Department from using the seized voter data for immigration enforcement. The motion noted the DOJ has separately sued 24 states to obtain detailed voter rolls — including names, birth dates, addresses, driver's license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers — for a planned national voter database.