WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, started with a referral from an election integrity official appointed by President Donald Trump, court documents showed on Tuesday.
Kurt Olsen, an attorney involved in legal challenges to Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, referred the matter to the FBI. Olsen has recently been serving as a Trump-appointed official focused on election integrity and security, according to an FBI affidavit.
The document lays out evidence used to justify an FBI search of Fulton County’s election center last month, during which agents seized more than 600 boxes of ballots and other material related to the 2020 election. The search, which was approved by a federal judge, appeared to be an effort to support Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voting fraud.
An FBI agent cited “deficiencies or defects” with the vote in Fulton County as evidence that laws around the retention of election records and voter fraud may have been violated.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Writing by Ismail Shakil)
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