Federal Judge Denies Fulton County Bid to Recover 2020 Election Materials Seized by FBI

A federal judge in Georgia denied a motion by Fulton County officials to return ballots and other materials from the 2020 election that the FBI took in a court-authorized search earlier this year.

U.S. District Judge Jean-Paul Boulee said Wednesday that attorneys for Fulton County failed to provide enough evidence showing the FBI affidavit was deficient in a way that demonstrated "callous disregard" for the county's rights.

Boulee noted, however, that the affidavit was "defective in some respects." It included misleading statements about the final ballot count in Fulton County in 2020 and had "troubling" omissions about ballot mechanisms.

"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. He added that the court could not say the affidavit's shortcomings rose to the "high[] threshold" of callous disregard.

This is a breaking story; it will be updated.