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GA FBI Raid Highlights Trump Obsession 01/29 06:23
DENVER (AP) -- Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection in 2020. But for
more than five years, he's been trying to convince Americans the opposite is
true by falsely saying the election was marred by widespread fraud.
Now that he's president again, Trump is pushing the federal government to
back up those bogus claims.
On Wednesday, the FBI served a search warrant at the election headquarters
of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, seeking ballots from
the 2020 election. That follows Trump's comments earlier this month when he
suggested during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,
that charges related to the election were imminent.
"The man has obsessions, as do a fair number of people, but he's the only
one who has the full power of the United States behind him," said Rick Hasen, a
UCLA law professor.
Hasen and many others noted that Trump's use of the FBI to pursue his
obsession with the 2020 election is part of a pattern of the president
transforming the federal government into his personal tool of vengeance.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, compared the search to the Minnesota
immigration crackdown that has killed two U.S. citizen protesters, launched by
Trump as his latest blow against the state's governor, who ran against him as
Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate in 2024.
"From Minnesota to Georgia, on display to the whole world, is a President
spiraling out of control, wielding federal law enforcement as an unaccountable
instrument of personal power and revenge," Ossoff said in a statement.
It also comes as election officials across the country are starting to rev
up for the 2026 midterms, where Trump is struggling to help his party maintain
its control of Congress. Noting that, in 2020, Trump contemplated using the
military to seize voting machines after his loss, some worry he's laying the
groundwork for a similar maneuver in the fall.
"Georgia's a blueprint," said Kristin Nabers of the left-leaning group All
Voting Is Local. "If they can get away with taking election materials here,
what's to stop them from taking election materials or machines from some other
state after they lose?"
Georgia has been at the heart of Trump's 2020 obsession. He infamously
called Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, asking
that Raffensperger "find" 11,780 more votes for Trump so he could be declared
the winner of the state. Raffensperger refused, noting that repeated reviews
confirmed Democrat Joe Biden had narrowly won Georgia.
Those were part of a series of reviews in battleground states, often led by
Republicans, that affirmed Biden's win, including in Michigan, Wisconsin and
Nevada. Trump also lost dozens of court cases challenging the election results
and his own attorney general at the time said there was no evidence of
widespread fraud.
His allies who repeated his lies have been successfully sued for defamation.
That includes former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who settled with two
Georgia election workers after a court ruled he owed them $148 million for
defaming them after the 2020 election.
Voting machine companies also have brought defamation cases against some
conservative-leaning news sites that aired unsubstantiated claims about their
equipment being linked to fraud in 2020. Fox News settled one such case by
agreeing to pay $787 million after the judge ruled it was "CRYSTAL clear" that
none of the allegations were true.
Trump's campaign to move Georgia into his column also sparked an ill-fated
attempt to prosecute him and some of his allies by Fulton County District
Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat. The case collapsed amid conflict-of-interest
charges against the prosecutor, and Trump has since sued Willis for the
prosecution.
On his first day in office, Trump rewarded some of those who helped him try
to overturn the 2020 election results by pardoning, commuting or vowing to
dismiss the cases of about 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on
the U.S. Capitol. He later signed an executive order trying to set new rules
for state election systems and voting procedures, although that has been
repeatedly blocked by judges who have ruled that the Constitution gives states,
and in some instances Congress, control of elections rather than the president.
As part of his campaign of retribution, Trump also has spoken about wanting
to criminally charge lawmakers who sat on the House committee investigating the
Jan. 6 attack, suggesting protective pardons of them from Biden are legally
invalid. He's targeted a former cybersecurity appointee who assured the public
in 2020 that the election was secure.
During a year of presidential duties, from dealing with wars in Gaza and
Ukraine to shepherding sweeping tax and spending legislation through Congress,
Trump has reliably found time to turn the subject to 2020. He has falsely
called the election rigged, said Democrats cheated and even installed a White
House plaque claiming Biden took office after "the most corrupt election ever."
David Becker, a former Department of Justice voting rights attorney and
executive director of The Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he
was skeptical the FBI search in Georgia would lead to any successful
prosecutions. Trump has demanded charges against several enemies such as former
FBI Director James Comey and New York's Democratic Attorney General, Letitia
James, that have stalled in court.
"So much this administration has done is to make claims in social media
rather than go to court," Becker said. "I suspect this is more about poisoning
the well for 2026."
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