The Fulton county commission chair, Robb Pitts, said at a press conference this morning that he received a phone call last Monday – two days before the FBI served a criminal warrant to seize 2020 election documents – to warn that he, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, former Raffensperger deputy Gabriel Sterling and others in the state were at risk of imminent arrest by federal agents.
“That did not happen on Monday,” Pitts said. “It didn’t happen on Tuesday, but lo and behold on Wednesday, the FBI shows up.”
Pitts would not disclose who called him, identifying them only as someone familiar with Washington DC, and the Guardian has not reported or confirmed that any of the three officials are under investigation.
The FBI has maintained a seal on the affidavit that federal officials used to obtain the criminal warrant. Pitts held a press conference on Wednesday to announce that the county had filed a motion for the ballots and other election material to be returned, and for that affidavit to be unsealed.
“Because the case is still under seal at this time, I cannot share the contents of the motion itself,” he said. “We will use every resource at our disposal to fight for their vote and that we will fight using all resources against those who seek to take over our elections. Our constitution itself is at stake in this fight.”
The press conference came amid deep confusion over an unprecedented raid that turns the presidential election disputes of 2020 into a criminal case.
Last week, FBI agents descended on Fulton county’s elections offices to seize about 700 boxes of 2020 election documents, citing a criminal warrant obtained by the St Louis-based US attorney Thomas Albus, whom the administration has designated as its point person on election integrity cases.
The special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office, Paul Brown, resigned from his post roughly a week before agents served the warrant. No public explanation has been given.
The presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, at the raid and a phone call to her and agents from Donald Trump has raised questions about national security and political interference. The Guardian reported that Gabbard is conducting her own review, separate from the FBI investigation.
“We’d heard a rumor that she may be coming,” Pitts said. “I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t meet her, I didn’t talk to her. But she was in fact there. So that leads me to believe, as any rational thinking person, that there’s something sinister going on here, something bigger than just the FBI confiscating the records they took.”
The FBI has not named anyone in Georgia as a target for a criminal prosecution and has not commented on the case.
“I have not done anything that would warrant an arrest,” Pitts said. “I’m not aware of anyone within our elections department having done anything that would warrant arrest. We’re simply doing our job.”
