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."