FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The court battle between Fulton County and the U.S. Department of Justice is continuing and a judge has put the county’s latest legal move on a deadline.
The county and U.S. government have been fighting it out in federal court in the months since FBI agents raided a county election office and seized hundreds of boxes of files from the 2020 election.
On Monday, the judge denied Fulton County’s motion for additional evidence, but the matter isn’t quite done.
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The judge gave Fulton County officials until April 27 to submit new evidence to support their request.
The filing was submitted by the county after a hearing where officials wanted a judge to have the 650 boxes of documents seized by the FBI returned to county offices.
The judge denied it based on how the county was trying to get the records from the FBI.
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The judge said Fulton County’s request was tantamount to having the court get the evidence for them.
Fulton County is seeking a few items from the FBI operation. County officials want to know when the FBI began heir investigation that led to the seizure of election materials.
They also want to know when attorney Kurt Olsen referred the criminal investigation at the center of the case to the FBI to begin investigating.
Officials also want the FBI to provide government communications records to “provide insight into” the investigation and its process, including any records of meetings or communications where U.S. Department of Justice officials “discussed using a criminal search warrant in response to delays” in an ongoing civil case over the election.
Fulton County leaders also want copies of communications between any criminal division DOJ staff involved in obtaining the search warrant and civil division staff involved in the lawsuit that is still working its way through the courts.
In the order, the judge wrote that the request escalates the evidentiary process by “asking the court to not only receive evidence but to obtain it” for the county.
The judge’s order said Fulton County has not identified a “basis for the Court’s authority to issue such an order. Nor do they explain why their motion is the proper mechanism to obtain the information, rather than seeking it from Respondent directly.”
As a result, the order advises that Fulton County should attempt to have the FBI release records they were searching for first, before attempting to have the court do so.
The county will have until April 27 to submit evidence for their request to have the court receive and provide the FBI investigative items in order for the judge to make a decision.
A decision date for the next step has not been set.
When asked, Fulton County officials told Channel 2 Action News that they do not currently have any comment on the Monday ruling.
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