作者：艾伦·布莱克（Aaron Blake）
更新于1小时48分钟前
2026年2月10日，美国东部时间晚上11:34更新
2026年2月10日，美国东部时间晚上10:48发布
佐治亚州当选官员试图进入富尔顿县选举中心和运营中心，但在联邦调查局（FBI）就2020年选举相关事宜在此执行搜查令后被拒之门外。
艾丽萨·波因特（Alyssa Pointer）/路透社
唐纳德·特朗普总统长期以来的“选举被窃取”运动最近进入了一个可能充满风险的新阶段，联邦调查局搜查了佐治亚州富尔顿县的一个选举办公室。
一些人担心，这可能是特朗普对美国选举采取更强硬干预的前兆。
此次搜查后，一个大问题是：司法部如何获得治安法官的许可？毕竟，搜查需要有犯罪的合理根据，而治安法官凯瑟琳·萨利纳斯（Catherine Salinas）并非所谓的司法极端分子或选举怀疑论者；据《法律与正义》（Lawfare）报道，她此前曾在公设辩护人办公室工作，并为克林顿任命的法官担任过书记员。
也许有一些新信息突然让人们相信2020年富尔顿县存在不当行为？
或者，事实可能并非如此。
周二公开的搜查令申请宣誓书，大量重复了关于选举违规的旧指控，这些指控要么已被驳斥，要么毫无进展。
申请还大量依赖选举否认者的信息，这些人的指控未能找到特朗普在过去五年多来一直寻求的选民欺诈“铁证”。
此外，宣誓书未提及任何实际犯罪意图的证据。
让我们来分析宣誓书中的几个关键部分。
“2020年11月3日总统选举后，佐治亚州富尔顿县的投票过程和计票存在诸多选举不当指控。其中一些指控已被证明不实，而一些指控得到证实，包括富尔顿县官员的承认。”
“选举不当”、“计票”和“证实”这些词语描绘了一幅严峻的画面，但具有误导性。
虽然富尔顿县的某些选举管理方面确实存在不完善之处——官员们也已承认这一点——但并没有证据表明存在广泛的欺诈行为。同样，特朗普竞选团队及其盟友在2020年大选后提起的数十起诉讼均以失败告终——事实上，几乎所有诉讼都是如此。
而且，从未有证据表明任何问题源于人为或行政错误以外的原因。在这种情况下，这些错误通常不被视为犯罪。
富尔顿县选举中心和运营中心的无人机照片（2026年1月29日，FBI就2020年选举相关事宜在佐治亚州尤宁市执行搜查令后拍摄）
“如果这些缺陷是故意行为的结果，无论未能保留记录或剥夺公平计票是否对特定选举或竞选结果具有决定性影响，都将违反联邦法律。”
关键在于“如果”。宣誓书未引用任何犯罪意图的真实证据。
在一个案例中，它引用了州选举委员会成员“认为”自己目睹了“故意行为”。在另一个案例中，它引用了一名数据分析师“得出结论，他所观察到的可能是故意的，但并非党派性的”。
说服治安法官批准搜查令所需的合理根据并不要求证明犯罪意图。但鉴于此前对选举的审查均未发现此类证据，这一点尤为值得注意。
对富尔顿县选举的两次备受瞩目的审查，包括一份广泛的“绩效审查委员会”报告，都发现了重大问题，但未发现欺诈或不当行为的证据。佐治亚州共和党州长布莱恩·肯普（Brian Kemp）和州务卿布拉德·拉芬斯珀格（Brad Raffensperger）都多次为选举结果辩护。
“联邦调查局的刑事调查源于总统任命的选举安全与诚信主任库尔特·奥尔森（Kurt Olsen）的移交。”
搜查令申请引用了一些知名的选举否认者。
奥尔森是一名律师，在挑战2020年选举中发挥了关键作用，包括参与一项旨在使特朗普输掉的关键州选举结果无效的诉讼。这些诉讼绝大多数都失败了。2021年1月6日暴徒冲击美国国会大厦时，他曾与特朗普进行多次通话。
奥尔森还因2022年亚利桑那州州长竞选活动中的“虚假、误导性和无根据的事实陈述”被联邦法官制裁，当时共和党候选人卡里·莱克（Kari Lake）输掉了竞选。
他最近被任命为特朗普政府的特别政府雇员。
宣誓书还引用了另一位试图推翻莱克失败的人——克莱·帕里克（Clay Parikh）。
“[证人1]于2022年7月8日向佐治亚州选举委员会投诉，称在2020年选举重新计票期间，佐治亚州国务卿网站上报告的结果中少了17,852张选票图像。”
这是一个多年前的指控，佐治亚州共和党籍国务卿发言人已对此进行了解释。
据《今日美国》报道，实际上，重新计票期间计票数比早期少了约17,000张，因为该县在两个批次文件中使用了相同的名称。随后通过“对账”流程进行了更正。
尽管宣誓书将缺少选票图像视为潜在犯罪证据，但路透社报道称，目前尚不清楚选举时法律是否要求保存此类选票图像。
“[证人5]得出结论，原始计票和重新计票中存在重复选票。此外，[证人]在重新计票中发现了新选票以及测试选票，这些选票在原始计票中并未出现。”
这涉及所谓的“重复选票”问题。在宣誓书引用的问题中，这可能是最合理的一个，但仍无实际不当行为的证据。
2024年州官员承认存在略多于3,000张重复选票图像。但重复选票图像并不等同于计票，官员无法确定其中任何一张在重新计票中被实际计票。
当时佐治亚州国务卿发言人告诉《政治事实》（PolitiFact）：“如果‘3,000张重复选票图像’被算作选票……结果就会相差3,000张——而它们并没有被计入。”
一名地方官员将重复选票图像归咎于人为错误。
“[证人8]回忆收到一批包含110张选票的批次。她很快注意到这些选票似乎不同。在这110张选票中，有107张对每个候选人的投票完全相同。这些选票也很干净，没有折叠。她认为，这107张选票虽然被标记为缺席选票，但太干净了，不像是缺席选票。她还表示，这107张选票的质地与其他所有选票不同，而且所有气泡都填得一样。”
这涉及所谓的“原始选票”理论。2021年，一名法官驳回了以此为依据的诉讼。
州务卿办公室审查了这些指控，并表示“无法证实存在欺诈或伪造选票被计入的指控”。他们未发现任何伪造选票。
该办公室一名官员解释说，一些海外和军事选票可能不适合扫描仪，因此这些选票可以被转移到可扫描的选票上，看起来更“原始”。
两个显著未出现的关键词/短语：“外国”和“诉讼时效”
宣誓书未提及任何关于外国选举干预的理论。这应该会增加人们对为何国家情报局局长图尔西·加巴德（Tulsi Gabbard）出现在FBI搜查现场的质疑。（加巴德的工作通常围绕外国威胁，而非国内执法。）
宣誓书也未解决任何后续起诉可能面临的一个重大潜在问题：时间的流逝。诉讼时效一般为五年，而2020年选举现已超出这一期限。这可能并不重要，因为其中一个犯罪是记录保存，要求在选举后保存22个月，因此诉讼时效从那时起五年后到期。但对于更严重的潜在罪行，这可能很重要。
富尔顿县选举中心和运营中心（2026年1月29日，FBI就2020年选举相关事宜在此执行搜查令后）
伊莱贾·努瓦拉吉（Elijah Nouvelage）/路透社
Breaking down the evidence DOJ used to justify searching a Fulton County elections office
Analysis by Aaron Blake
Updated 1 hr 48 min ago
Updated Feb 10, 2026, 11:34 PM ET
PUBLISHED Feb 10, 2026, 10:48 PM ET
Georgia state elected officials attempt to access the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center but are turned away after the FBI executed a search warrant there in relation to the 2020 election.
Alyssa Pointer/Reuters
President Donald Trump’s long-running stolen-election crusade entered a potentially fraught new phase recently, with the FBI search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia.
Some fear it could be a precursor to an even more heavy-handed Trump intervention in American elections.
And a big question after the search was how it got the go-ahead from a magistrate judge. After all, searches require probable cause of a crime, and the magistrate judge, Catherine Salinas, was not exactly some reputed judicial extremist or election skeptic; according to Lawfare, she had previously worked for a public defender’s office and clerked for a Clinton appointee.
Maybe there was some new information that suddenly lent some credence to claims of malfeasance in Fulton County in 2020?
Or, as it turns out, maybe not.
The affidavit that was used for the search warrant application was made public on Tuesday, and it overwhelmingly recycles old claims about voting irregularities that have either been debunked or haven’t gone anywhere.
The application also relies heavily on information from prominent election-deniers whose claims have failed to produce the voter-fraud smoking gun Trump has sought over the past five-plus years.
In addition, the affidavit cites no evidence of any actual criminal intent.
Let’s annotate some key parts from the affidavit.
“Following the November 3, 2020, presidential election, there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia. Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County.”
The combination of “electoral impropriety,” “ballot counting” and “substantiated” paint a dire picture. But a misleading one.
While it’s true that certain aspects of Fulton County’s election administration were not perfect – and officials have acknowledged as such – there has been no proof offered of widespread fraud. Similarly, dozens of lawsuits from Trump’s campaign and allies failed after the 2020 election – nearly all of them, in fact.
And it’s never been demonstrated that any of the problems owed to anything other than human or administrative errors. Which, in this context, usually aren’t treated as crimes.
A drone picture shows the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center a day after the FBI executed a search warrant in relation to the 2020 election in Union City, Georgia on January 29.
Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters
“If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be a violation of federal law regardless of whether the failure to retain records or the deprivation of a fair tabulation of a vote was outcome determinative for any particular election or race.”
The key word there is “if.” The affidavit doesn’t cite any real evidence of criminal intent.
In one case, it cites a member of the state election board who “believed” she had witnessed “an intentional act.” In another, it cites a data analyst who “concluded that what he observed could be intentional but was not partisan.”
Criminal intent isn’t required to convince a magistrate to find probable cause to approve the warrant. But the lack of evidence on that front is notable given previous reviews of the election have failed to turn up any evidence of it.
Two high-profile reviews of Fulton County’s elections, including an extensive “Performance Review Board” report, both found significant problems but no evidence of fraud or misconduct. Georgia’s GOP governor, Brian Kemp, and secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, have both frequently defended the election results.
“The FBI criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen, Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity.”
The warrant application cites a number of prominent election-deniers.
Olsen is a lawyer who played a key role in challenging the 2020 election, including working on a lawsuit to nullify the results of key states that Trump lost. Such lawsuits overwhelmingly failed. He had multiple phone calls with Trump on January 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the US Capitol.
Olsen was also sanctioned over what a federal judge found to be “false, misleading and unsupported factual assertions” about the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial campaign, which Republican Kari Lake lost.
He was recently made a special government employee in the Trump administration.
The affidavit also cites another person who tried and failed to overturn Lake’s loss, Clay Parikh.
“[Witness No. 1] filed a complaint with the Georgia State Election Board on July 8, 2022, alleging, among other things, that during the Recount of the 2020 Election there were 17,852 missing ballot images from the reported results on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website.”
This is a years-old claim, and a spokesman for Georgia’s Republican secretary of state has explained it.
Basically, there were about 17,000 fewer ballots counted during a recount than in earlier counts, because the county used the same name on two batch files, USA Today has reported. The count was later corrected through a process called “reconciliation.”
And while the affidavit cites missing ballot images as potential evidence of a crime, Reuters has reported that it’s not clear that the law at the time of the election required such ballot images to be saved.
“[Witness No. 5] concluded there were duplicate ballots included in both the Original Count and the Recount. Further, [the witness] identified new ballots as well as test ballots in the Recount that did not appear in the Original Count.”
This refers to the so-called “duplicate ballot” issue. And among the issues cited in the affidavit, it’s perhaps the most legitimate. But there’s still no real evidence of malfeasance.
State officials in 2024 acknowledged a little more than 3,000 duplicate ballot images. But duplicate ballot images are not the same as counted votes, and officials couldn’t determine that any of them were actually tabulated in the recount.
“If the ‘3,000 duplicate ballot images’ had been counted as votes … the results would have been off by 3,000 — and they were not,” a spokesman for the Georgia secretary of state told PolitiFact back then.
A local official cited human error for the duplicate ballot images.
“[Witness No. 8] recalled receiving one batch of ballots that contained 110 ballots. [She] said she noticed quickly that those ballots seemed different. Of the 110 ballots, 107 had the exact same votes for each candidate on the ballot. These ballots were also pristine in that they had not been folded. She said the 107 were labeled as absentee ballots but they were too clean to be absentee ballots, in her opinion. She also said the texture of the 107 ballots felt different from all the other ballots and the bubbles were all filled in the same.”
This refers to the so-called “pristine ballots” theory. A judge in 2021 dismissed a lawsuit that relied on these claims.
The secretary of state’s office reviewed the claims and said it was “unable to substantiate the allegations that fraudulent or counterfeit ballots were counted.” They found no ballots that appeared to be counterfeits.
An official in that office has explained that some overseas and military ballots might not be the right size for scanners, so those votes can be transferred to ballots that can be scanned and might appear more “pristine.”
Two key words/phrases that notably don’t appear: ‘foreign’ and ‘statute of limitations’
The affidavit notably makes no mention of any theories about foreign election interference. That should ratchet up questions as to why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present at the FBI search. (Gabbard’s job generally revolves around foreign threats, not domestic law enforcement.)
The affidavit also does not address a pretty significant potential problem with any ensuing prosecutions: the passage of time. The statute of limitations is generally five years, and the 2020 election is now just outside that window. That might not matter to the extent this is about record retention – one of the crimes the affidavit cites requires keeping records for 22 months after an election, so the statute would expire five years after that. But it could matter for more severe potential offenses.