Trump Finally Achieves His Ambition To Seize the Voting Machines (Or, at Least, Their 2020 Tabulator Tape)
This is your TPM evening briefing.
The FBI executed a search warrant on Wednesday at an election office near Atlanta in Fulton County, Georgia, a locale infamous among MAGA conspiracy theorists’ who fulminated about the 2020 election and beyond. The search was, indeed, related to the 2020 election, according to a sweeping search warrant that surfaced hours after the raid.
The warrant showed that investigators were seeking “all physical ballots from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County; including, but not limited to: absentee ballots to include envelopes; advanced voting ballots; provisional ballots; in-person election day ballots; emergency ballots; damaged or destroyed ballots; duplicated ballots; or any other ballot that was used to cast a vote.”
It also listed “tabulator tapes for every voting machine used in Fulton County” as well as “all ballot images produced during the original ballot count beginning on November 3, 2020, the recount, and any other ballot images that were created from ballot scanning from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”
The search warrant also gave agents access to “all voter rolls from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County, from absentee, early voting, in person and any other voter roll that indicates voters: to whom an absentee ballot was issued, from whom an absentee ballot was received, or who participated in advanced voting or election day voting.”
“This warrant authorizes a review of electronic storage media and electronically stored information seized or copied pursuant to this warrant in order to locate evidence, fruits, and instrumentalities described in this warrant,” it said.
Fulton County, a majority Black county in a red-trending-purple state, became ground zero for election misinformation and conspiracy theorizing in the lead up to and in the wake of the 2020 election. Trump and his allies’ various baseless conspiracy theories alleged widespread voter fraud in Fulton County and culminated with President Trump’s now-infamous phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from January 2021. During that phone call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election in Georgia. We learned only recently that Trump also personally pressed the speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives to hold hearings to overturn the election, citing similar, baseless allegations.
In an interview with the New York Times earlier this month, Trump expressed his regret over not using the National Guard to seize voting machines during the 2020 election.
News of the FBI search also comes just days after President Trump said, again, that the 2020 election was “rigged” and suggested “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did” during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It also comes after the DOJ last month filed a lawsuit in federal court against the clerk of Fulton County Superior and Magistrate Courts in an attempt to get access to records related to the 2020 election in Fulton County.
Many of the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election fixated on Georgia generally and Fulton County specifically due to a groundswell of online disinfo that Trump’s allies spread about how local officials ran the election. Here’s a refresher on some of the most prominent conspiracy theories that focused on Fulton County following the 2020 election, and the theatrics they inspired.
‘Suitcases of Ballots’
At a Georgia Senate hearing from December 2020, someone from Trump’s legal team presented “evidence” from November 2020 of Fulton County election workers supposedly bringing in suitcases of illegal ballots. The “suitcases” were actually just the carrying cases used to transport ballots. And even though the rumor was debunked, it quickly went viral, and became a talking point for Trump and his allies.
‘Ballots Dumps’
Trump and his allies also repeated and continue to repeat the lie that there were massive ballot dumps for Joe Biden in purple states generally and in Georgia specifically. Again, these “ballot dumps” are easily explained — election workers were counting absentee ballots on election night — but the rumor spun out of control.
‘Ballot Harvesting’
There were also rumors about supposed ballot harvesting in Fulton County in 2020. This completely baseless set of allegations originated with the conservative, Texas-based, right-wing conspiracy organization, “True the Vote,” which filed a claim with Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that they had video evidence of ballot harvesting in the county. They, of course, did not.
The ‘Perfect’ Phone Call
In January 2021, Trump called Raffensperger urging him to “find” the votes needed for him to overturn the election results in Georgia. Biden won Georgia in 2020 by close to 12,000 votes. During this phone call, Trump peddled all of these above-mentioned falsehoods and more.
— Nicole LaFond and Khaya Himmelman
Threats Against Lawmakers Surged in 2025
On Tuesday, the same day a man lunged at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) during a town hall and attempted to spray her with an unknown substance from a syringe, the U.S. Capitol Police released a report that found threats made against lawmakers, their families, staff and the Capitol building as a whole skyrocketed in 2025.
Capitol Police’s Threat Assessment Section said that agency looked into 14,938 statements, behaviors and communicated threats in 2025, up nearly 5,000 from 2024. The threats include all kinds of things, like social media posts and phone calls as well as the direct targeting of specific members of Congress. Threats against lawmakers have increased each year for the past three years.
“While security on Capitol Grounds has already improved, we have been strengthening our partnerships with law enforcement agencies across the country to keep the Members of Congress safe when they are away from Capitol Hill,” Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan said in a statement released with the report. “We want to make sure agencies have the resources they need to be able to enhance protection, which is critical to the democratic process.”
— Nicole LaFond
Trump Goes After Indiana Lawmakers
Trump is making good on his threats to go after Indiana Republicans who refused to approve his redistricting plan in the state. The Indiana Senate rejected a proposal for a new gerrymandered map last month — a significant defeat in the administration’s larger gerrymandering assault in red states across the country.
In the lead up to that Senate vote, Trump took to Truth Social to bully and threaten Indiana republicans into approving the new maps, which posed a threat to any Democratic representation for Indiana in the U.S. House. Just ahead of the state Senate vote, Trump, in a Truth Social post, Trump again threatened Republican lawmakers who refused to succumb to pressure from the administration.
According to reporting from NOTUS, Trump has thus far endorsed three primary challengers against lawmakers who rejected the state’s gerrymandering proposal.
Most notably, Trump has endorsed state Rep. Michelle Davis, who is challenging state Sen. Greg Walker, who publicly condemned the administration’s gerrymandering campaign.
Earlier this month, Walker also announced that he would no longer retire from the Indiana legislature due to the pressure he and fellow lawmakers faced on redistricting from the Trump administration.
“I’m greatly concerned when I see Hoosier politics play a surrogate to those national battles,” Walker previously told the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
— Khaya Himmelman
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Solid recap of how these Fulton County conspiracy theories evolved into actual federal action. The irony of Trump finally getting access to election data through legitimate law enforcement channels after years of basless claims is kinda striking. Watched some of those suitcase ballot hearings back in 2020 and the disconnect between what people beleived vs what actually happened was massive. The pattern of escalation from social media rumors to federal warrants is worth tracking.