A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Justice Department can continue holding thousands of 2020 election ballots seized earlier this year from Fulton County, Georgia, delivering a legal victory for the Trump administration as it continues investigating allegations tied to the 2020 election.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee rejected Fulton County’s effort to force the federal government to return the original ballots and election materials taken during an FBI search in January at the county’s election operations center in Union City, outside Atlanta.
The ruling allows the FBI to retain more than 600 boxes of ballots and related records while federal investigators continue examining whether election records were improperly maintained and whether Fulton County voters may have been deprived of a fair election process.
Fulton County officials had argued the FBI search was based on flawed and discredited allegations and violated constitutional protections. County lawyers accused federal investigators of relying on incomplete and misleading information when obtaining the search warrant.
Judge Boulee acknowledged problems with the affidavit submitted by the FBI but ultimately concluded the issues did not rise to the level necessary to justify returning the records.
“While the Affidavit was certainly far from perfect, this is not a situation where an officer left out all the facts that might undermine probable cause or where an officer intentionally lied,” Boulee wrote in his 68-page opinion.
The judge ruled that the government’s conduct did not demonstrate the “callous disregard” required under federal law for the seized materials to be returned before the investigation concludes.
Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts said county officials strongly disagreed with the decision and intended to continue fighting the case.
“Fulton County intends to vigorously pursue all available legal options,” Pitts said in a statement following the ruling.
The case has drawn national attention because it sits at the center of President Donald Trump’s continuing efforts to revisit the 2020 election and investigate claims involving ballot handling and vote tabulation.
Trump has repeatedly argued there were serious irregularities in the 2020 election, particularly in Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that became one of the most heavily scrutinized jurisdictions after Joe Biden narrowly carried Georgia that year. Georgia later swung back to Trump in the 2024 election.
The federal investigation reportedly began after a referral from attorney Kurt Olsen, who previously assisted Trump allies challenging the 2020 election results and has since been involved in renewed election reviews backed by the administration.
Federal investigators cited alleged “deficiencies or defects” in Fulton County’s election records when seeking the warrant. Among the concerns raised were claims involving missing digital ballot images and absentee ballots that allegedly did not appear folded in the manner investigators expected.
County attorneys argued many of those allegations had already been reviewed years earlier and either disproven or attributed to misunderstandings about election procedures rather than misconduct.
During a March hearing in Atlanta, an election expert advising Fulton County testified that several claims in the FBI affidavit appeared to reflect confusion about how ballots are processed and stored during elections.
The investigation has also raised eyebrows because Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard attended the FBI search in person — an unusual step for a senior intelligence official whose office traditionally focuses on foreign threats rather than domestic election administration.
Despite Wednesday’s ruling, major legal and procedural questions still hang over the federal probe.
Justice Department lawyers have not publicly identified any specific targets of the investigation, and they have reportedly not disputed arguments that the statute of limitations may already have expired for some of the potential offenses under review.
