On Tuesday afternoon, the FBI finally released a court-ordered affidavit showing the basis for its January raid seizing nearly 700 boxes of ballots and voting records from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia. A judge signed off on the raid after the FBI alleged “evidence of a commission of a criminal offense” relating to the 2020 election.
But what the unsealed affidavit actually revealed was a laundry list of debunked and recycled claims about the 2020 election peddled for years by election deniers that have been rejected repeatedly in court and by election officials. Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger called the claims “baseless and repackaged.”
The affidavit immediately began with a red flag: the declaration submitted to the court by FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans said that the bureau’s “criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen,” a temporary White House employee tasked with investigating the 2020 election results. Olsen is a prominent election denier who played a leading role in the 2020 “Stop the Steal” movement, lobbying the Department of Justice to file a lawsuit with the Supreme Court attempting to overturn the election (Texas eventually filed a lawsuit that was unanimously rejected) and speaking to Trump multiple times on January 6, 2021. He was subsequently sanctioned by a federal court for making “false, misleading and unsupported factual assertions” while representing Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in her unsuccessful attempt to challenge the results of the 2022 election.
Evidence provided by Clay Parikh, another election denier who testified on behalf of Lake in 2022, is also prominently cited in the affidavit.
Interesting it was a state judge that authorized this warrant according to the article. I am still a little fuzzy on how feds can use state warrants to be honest.
But news organizations need to start to name these judges. Not naming them is a disservice, assuming they are acting in good faith, and the fact that this warrant was authorized is absolute proof this judge was not acting in good faith.
We still operate under these old laws of decorum, that have brought us to this place. While the right wing has long been on campaigns against judges that rule against them in favor of the laws as their duty is, we pretend like all treachery by judges is based on good faith interpretations of the law.
Every accusation is a confession, Activist Judges indeed.
“The FBI had obtained a warrant from Magistrate Judge Catherine M. Salinas to seize all physical ballots, ballot images, tabulator tapes, and the voter rolls of Fulton County from the 2020 United States presidential election.”