A federal judge in Georgia has blocked a subpoena from the Department of Justice that would have collected personal information from poll workers and volunteers from the 2020 election in Fulton County in what he called an "unreasonable" request.
The grand jury subpoena was filed in April and was almost immediately met with resistance from Fulton County officials, who argued the request was overreaching and came from baseless claims of election fraud six years ago.
President Donald Trump has continued to spread the conspiracy that he won the state of Georgia in 2020, despite multiple investigations led by both Democrats and Republicans failing to find the alleged fraud. In Georgia, the conspiracy is also being spread by Rep. Mike Collins who is currently running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff. Collins said Trump won the 2020 election in interviews as recently as June.
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Officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided an election hub in Fulton County at the beginning of the year, seizing hundreds of boxes of ballots and tally sheets from election workers. County officials have sought legal avenues for having the materials returned, which are in various stages within the courts.
The FBI has also been ordered to swarm the Fulton County investigation, with as many as 260 analysts combing through the raid materials with a July 17 deadline.
Now, U.S. District Judge William Ray has landed the latest blow against Trump and his continued focus on Fulton County.
Judge: Breadth of Grand Jury subpoena 'staggering'
In the Court's decision, filed on July 7, the judge calls the "breadth" of the April subpoena "staggering."
Fulton County officials argued in a May 4 motion that the subpoena would apply to thousands of employees and volunteers who worked around the 2020 election, as Fulton County is the most populous in the state of Georgia and encompasses a large section of metro Atlanta.
Judge Ray wrote the DOJ is "unquestionably under the current President's control," and therefore was using the subpoena power of a Grand Jury to overstep. He argues the statute of limitations has long passed for the DOJ to bring a case in Fulton County, and the scope of the subpoena is too large given it asks for information from the months and years after the election.
"Everyone, whether you support the President or do not, or whether you believe the 2020 election was fair or believe that it was not, should be concerned about the DOJ's ability to utilize the power of the Grand Jury to appropriate your private information without a purpose," Judge Ray wrote. "... The DOJ cannot evade the statute of limitations based merely on a theory that someone, somewhere, somehow did something that was illegal."
The Judge also argued such an extensive breach of personal information of poll workers, many of whom volunteer, would "threaten to chill participation in future elections," both for workers and voters.
"Is there a chance that questioning poll workers may yield some evidence? Maybe. But, the disclosure of the requested information would cause substantial harm to Fulton County's interest in enlisting poll workers and other election volunteers in the future, at least during the current Administration which seems so laser focused to cast the 2020 Election as illegitimate, even though it changes nothing practically," Judge Ray wrote.
Warnock said raids were 'pretext to interfere' in midterm elections
In a February spotlight hearing with Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory, Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock said the raids and subsequent legal filings were part of an effort to "rig the rules ahead of the 2026 midterm elections" and set the stage to interfere again.
Ivory said she had been "worried about the workers" during the January raids.
When Warnock asked Ivory if she was "concerned about what the administration will do with such sensitive data from Fulton County voters," she answered a clear "yes."
"I mean, what we're seeing is a preview of what could happen nationally, which is attempted takeovers from multiple angles," Ivory testified. "I worry about the election workers, who are everyday people coming to work to support their families and feel intimidated just going to work every day."
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told USA TODAY in February the president "is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters."
Bottoms calls decision 'victory for democracy'
Keisha Lance Bottoms, who was the mayor of Atlanta during the 2020 election and is now the Democratic nominee for governor, celebrated the ruling in a statement Tuesday.
"This decision is a victory for democracy and a rebuke of Donald Trump's latest attempt to intimidate dedicated election workers," Bottoms said. "Even after Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election upended the lives of two Georgia election workers, Rick Jackson chose to stand with Trump instead of the public servants who safeguarded our democracy."
Jackson, the Republican nominee for governor, beat out the Georgia Secretary of State, who oversaw the 2020 election, in the Republican gubernatorial primary and has supported the DOJ investigation into Fulton County throughout his campaign.
"If Fulton County worked half as hard to clean up voter rolls as it does to keep the truth in the dark, people might actually trust the system," Jackson wrote in a post on X following Fulton County's motion to block the subpoena.
