The F.B.I.’s Extraordinary Seizure of Voting Records

The Daily

The New York Times

News, Daily News

4.3 • 107.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last week, F.B.I. agents searched an election center in Fulton County, Ga., seizing truckloads of ballots from 2020. The move escalated the investigation into President Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the state after his 2020 defeat in the state. It has since been learned that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was present during the search. Devlin Barrett, a Times reporter who covers the F.B.I., discusses the presence of the nation’s top intelligence official and the stunning phone call that shows how personally involved Mr. Trump has become in the investigation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From a New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarrow.
0:03.7	This is The Daily.
0:10.6	Today, what we're learning about the FBI's highly unusual seizure of voting records last week in Georgia,
0:20.1	the presence of the nation's top intelligence
0:23.1	official at the scene, and the stunning phone call that reveals how personally involved
0:29.5	President Trump has become in the investigation.
0:35.9	I spoke with my colleague, Devlin Barrett.
0:44.0	It's Tuesday, February 3rd.
0:52.7	Devlin, this story begins with a dramatic scene, which unfolded a few days ago in Fulton County, Georgia.
0:59.9	Can you just describe that to us?
1:03.2	Sure, so...
1:04.1	Take a live look at the Fulton County Elections Office near Atlanta.
1:10.0	Last Wednesday morning, a group of FBI agents show up for a massive undertaking.
1:14.6	The collection of a huge volume of stuff related to the 2020 election in Fulton County.
1:21.6	FBI agents spent the afternoon inside the records warehouse for the Fulton County, Georgia Board of Elections.
1:29.1	Fulton County contains the city of Atlanta, so obviously it has a lot of election records,
1:33.5	but specifically what the agents were there to get were the paper ballots from that election,
1:39.4	but also other things, such as voter rolls, such as tabulation tapes, all of which is essentially data
1:46.8	and documentation about the 2020 election.
1:50.3	So to be clear, every single ballot or close to it from an election six years ago is taken
1:57.4	by the FBI out of this building.
1:59.5	Right. And it takes hours to load all those hundreds of boxes into trucks
	...

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