Trump admin fired Atlanta FBI chief for 'refusal to carry out' election raid: report

Members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Evidence Response Team walk outside the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City, Georgia, U.S. January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer

MS NOW Justice and Intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian is now reporting that President Donald Trump administration’s seizure of Fulton County, Georgia election records may be either more flimsy or more political than proclaimed.

“Two people familiar with [the] matter tell MS NOW News that the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta Field office, Paul Brown, was forced out of that job earlier this month over his qualms about, and refusal to carry out, the searches and seizures of the Fulton County ballots,” Dilanian announced on X.

On Wednesday, members of the FBI raided the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, carrying away records from an election that happened five years ago, which President Donald Trump lost to former President Joe Biden. That loss was one of the few national elections in modern history where a Democrat beat a Republican in the formerly deep-red state of Georgia.

Several opinions on the matter argue that the actual case for Donald Trump’s loss five years ago is a flimsy argument for the administration to make. Speculation suggests the raid could be the work of Trump’s politicized FBI laboring to make the president feel better about losing the election. Other opinions argue that the administration is chasing ulterior motives for taking the information and trying to build a case, no matter how weak.

Georgia attorney Michael J. Moore characterized the Wednesday raid as “an effort by the federal government to control elections,” saying “that's been a goal of this administration for some time.”

The statute of limitations for federal crimes is typically about five years, he added, saying the time to investigate the suspicion of election fraud theft had expired.

Atlanta Journal Constitution Senior Political columnist Patricia Murphy, meanwhile, agreed that the raid “is about the next elections — who will control them in Fulton County in 2026 and who will run them in Georgia two years after that when the 2028 presidential election takes place.”

Elections in Georgia’s extremely blue Fulton County are currently handled by the Fulton County Election Board, but Republican state lawmakers passed a new voting law that gives the Republican-dominated Georgia State Election Board the power to replace any so-called “underperforming” county election board. Replacement is possible in the event of an audit or investigation.

As a side note, the State Election Board “now includes three Republican members whom Trump infamously singled out in 2024 as ‘pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.’” Murphy said. And two of the so-called “pit bulls” were onsite with the FBI in Union City during the Wednesday raid, Murphy added.

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