By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press
DENVER (AP) — Donald Trump for reelection in 2020. But for more than five years, he’s been trying to convince Americans the opposite is true by the election was marred by widespread fraud.
Now that he’s president again, Trump is pushing the federal government to back up those .
On Wednesday, the FBI 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 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 .
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 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 after his loss, 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 for Trump so he could be declared the winner of the state. Raffensperger refused, noting that 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 ,Ի. Trump also challenging the election results and his own attorney general at the time said there was of widespread fraud.
His allies who repeated his lies have been successfully . That includes former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who after a court ruled he owed them $148 million for .
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 by agreeing to pay $787 million after the judge ruled it was that none of the allegations were true.
Trump’s campaign to move Georgia into his column also sparked an ill-fated attempt to by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat. The case collapsed after Willis was , and Trump has since from the office.
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 charged in the on the U.S. Capitol. He later signed an 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 investigating the , suggesting protective pardons of them from Biden are legally invalid. He’s targeted who assured the public in 2020 that the .
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 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.”
