How a MAGA election board’s Trump loyalists paved the way for FBI voting search

Members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Evidence Response Team in Union City, Georgia, U.S. January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to the Democratic nominee — former Vice President and ex-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) — his claim that the election was stolen from him was repeatedly debunked by numerous vote recounts. And some of the debunking came from conservative Republicans, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr and then-Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

But Trump, now 13 and one-half months into his second presidency, continues to double down on his false claim that he won the 2020 election. In January, FBI agents searched an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing 2020 election records.

In an article published on March 5, CNN reporters Tierney Sneed and Zachary Cohen describe ways in which the Georgia State Election Board helped pave the way for the FBI search.

"For most election administrators around the country," Sneed and Cohen explain, "the FBI's recent seizure of 2020 Atlanta-area ballots was shocking. But for some members of the Georgia State Election Board, the search was a welcome development. Led by the commission's vice chair, Janice Johnston — a retired obstetrician who, according to court filings, had no experience working elections prior to 2021 — the board's conservative majority has been relentlessly pursuing fraud theories about Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election."

The CNN journalists continue, "After subpoenaing some of the Fulton County election records themselves, the board invited the Justice Department's assistance last year, itself, resulting in a Trump Administration civil lawsuit in December that preceded the search warrant secured through a federal criminal probe. Johnston and another MAGA-aligned board member, former media personality Janelle King, were witnesses cited by the FBI in its application to justify seizing the records, as were other election deniers who have made frequent appearances before the board to allege a tainted 2020 result."

According to David Worley — a Democrat who formerly served on the Georgia State Election Board — Johnston objected when told she couldn't enter the Fulton County election center's inner storage room during the FBI search. Johnston didn't object to the search, but rather, wanted to get some credit for it and argued, "It's our subpoena."

Salleigh Grubbs, another Republican on the Georgia State Election Board, told CNN, "It's way past time for these matters to have been investigated." And she said it was "great" that the FBI search took place.

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