FBI searches Fulton County (Georgia) election hub in connection with Trump's 2020 election loss

Day ends with y.

Trump posts discredited conspiracy theories following seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia​

In the hours after FBI agents seized 2020 election ballots from an elections facility in Georgia on Wednesday, President Donald Trump posted a series of thoroughly discredited conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election -- and the 2016 election too.

Late Wednesday night, the president reposted to his social media platform a claim that Italian military satellites had been used to hack into U.S. voting machines to flip votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

Among the statements posted and reposted by Trump following the FBI's actions in Georgia is one on the 2016 election that falsely claims that "Barack Hussein Obama" falsified intelligence and "conspired with foreign powers, not one, not two, not three, but four times to overthrow the United States government in 2016."

In addition to being baseless, the claim ignores the fact that Obama was president in 2016, so if he tried to overthrow the government, he would have been overthrowing himself.

In 2023, Powell pleaded guilty to state charges of conspiracy to commit "intentional interference with performance of election duties" in Georgia and agreed to serve six years of probation and to pay a $6,000 fine.

And now it appears that Sidney Powell is back. In a post on X Thursday morning, DOJ official Ed Martin posted a picture of himself with Powell, writing, "Good morning, America. How are ya'?"

Gabbard defends presence at elections raid -- The President told me to​

Oh, that makes it okay, then.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers Monday that President Donald Trump personally asked her to be on site as FBI agents executed a politically sensitive search warrant at an Atlanta-area elections office, according to a copy of a letter sent by Gabbard and obtained by POLITICO.

[The letter] followed the New York Times reporting earlier Monday that Gabbard arranged a call last Thursday between Trump and members of the FBI field office in Atlanta, which led the operation. The Justice Department is supposed to operate free from political interference, and it is highly unusual for a sitting president to have direct communication with frontline law enforcement personnel handling a sensitive case.

Election officials push back against Trump administration after Fulton County raid and voter roll demands​

Georgia officials warn the administration’s adversarial approach undermines their ability to do their jobs and Americans’ faith in the electoral process.

When election officials convene in Washington, D.C., every winter, as they did Thursday, it typically results in congenial and bipartisan discussions with experts and federal officials on the voting process.

But this year’s meeting kicked off in a much tenser manner. The day before, the FBI conducted a search of an elections hub in Fulton County seizing ballots and records related to the 2020 election.

“All those folks in Fulton County — whose work has been proven to be good, whose work has been proven to be solid over and over and over again — have to suffer the humiliation. How in the world is that going to change anything? How in the world is that going to make anything better? It’s just not,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat.

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees her state’s elections, condemned statements made by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon that the administration’s pursuit of voter rolls was due to states not maintaining them as “quite appalling.”

“She’s pretty much slandered all of us. To me, that’s problematic to publicly claim that secretaries of state are not doing our jobs and that the federal government has to do it — not OK,” she said.

[Trump Administration didn't like their tone, I guess, so they've given them another invitation they can't refuse.]

FBI invites state election officials to an 'unusual' briefing on the midterms​

The invitation comes amid growing tensions between state and federal officials over elections as President Donald Trump calls to "nationalize the voting."

Days after a tense gathering [above link] in Washington, D.C., laid bare growing acrimony between President Donald Trump's administration and state election officials, the FBI invited those same officials to discuss "preparations" for the midterm elections.

It will include the FBI, the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Election Assistance Commission.

The invitation, which was sent this week, according to the election official, was signed by Kellie M. Hardiman, who identified herself as an "FBI Election Executive." A LinkedIn page for Hardiman says she was appointed seven months ago.

“No one has heard of this person — and we’re all wondering what an 'FBI Election Executive' is,” the [state election] official added.

The Justice Department is suing dozens of states for their voter roll data. Just last week, the FBI raided a county elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing hundreds of boxes of election materials in connection with the 2020 election.