Fulton County has accused the Department of Justice (DOJ) of becoming “impatient” with a civil lawsuit, asserting that the DOJ attempted to bypass the usual discovery process by obtaining a search warrant. The warrant was sought to investigate Georgia’s management of the 2020 election, based on alleged violations that the DOJ is not authorized to prosecute, according to the county’s claims in federal court.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ordered the unsealing of the case docket on Saturday. He instructed the DOJ to submit its search warrant affidavit by Tuesday as he reviews Fulton County’s request for the return of election materials from 2020, including ballots, ballot images, tabulators, and voter rolls.

The unsealed records include a Thursday argument from Fulton County Attorney Y. Soo Jo, representing Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts. Jo contended that the affidavit supporting the search warrant, authorized by a judge, did not provide probable cause to seize “approximately 656 boxes containing the original versions of 2020 election-related materials” from the Fulton County Clerk of Superior Court.

The search warrant was originally signed on January 28 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas.

Robb Pitts publicly reacted to the FBI’s raid on the Fulton County Elections Hub, expressing suspicion over the presence of former Representative Tulsi Gabbard on the scene. Pitts suggested that her involvement indicated “something sinister” and claimed that former President Trump might be using the county as a testing ground for his efforts to “nationalize” elections.

In his memo advocating for the return of the election materials, Pitts accused Gabbard of being part of a “callous” violation of the First Amendment and an intimidation effort.

“The Warrant was executed in a manner seemingly designed to intimidate; both the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the FBI Deputy Director, Andrew Bailey, were on site for the search,” the filing said. “The records seized included personal voter data and documents that could identify who voted for which candidate. Respondent’s seizure, resulting in the federal government being in possession of sensitive voter data, was in callous disregard of such First Amendment considerations.”

The memo, pointing out that the DOJ had been actively suing Fulton County Clerk of Courts Ché Alexander for 2020 election records, surmised that the Trump administration “became impatient” with having to go through the civil discovery process and decided to “improperly leapfrog” those limitations.

Just last Friday, the DOJ asked another judge to halt the lawsuit “until criminal proceedings have been resolved,” as the records DOJ sought were already seized.

Fulton County said the “timing” of the search warrant and the move to “circumvent” discovery “reveal” an “abuse of the criminal process.”

“Although parallel civil litigation does not automatically invalidate a search warrant seeking overlapping evidence, in the circumstances of this case, using the criminal process to improperly leapfrog and moot active civil litigation is an end-run around judicial supervision that reflects callous disregard for the procedural safeguards against unlawful search and seizure,” the filing said.

The county added that it is “appropriate” for the Trump administration to hand over the affidavit because it “appears” the search is “based upon claims that have been repeatedly investigated and rejected as baseless” and “unfounded” regarding systemic, election-altering voter fraud in 2020.

Meanwhile, the DOJ “callously disregards the Fourth Amendment” because it “cannot prosecute” the records-related “violations” it “cited as the basis of the Warrant,” as too much time has passed, the filing stated.

“Respondent based its Warrant on a potential violation of a records retention statute, 52 U.S.C. § 20701, and on a criminal penalties provision for voter intimidation and voter fraud, 52 U.S.C. § 20511. Section 20701 requires retention of records for 22 months. Section 20511 is subject to a five-year statute of limitations. Petitioners are well beyond both the retention period and the limitations period for the cited statutes. Thus, there is no basis for prosecutions under these statutes for claims related to 2020 election records.”

Fulton County’s legal team said that as a result it was “difficult to imagine how the affidavit supports probable cause[.]”

“Given the lengthy history of widely debunked voter fraud theories, there is little reason to have confidence that the affidavit establishes probable cause,” the memo concluded. “Respondent’s own investigative history and the public record negate the very fraud theories on which probable cause appears to rest.”