A federal judge in Georgia has ruled that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice does not have to return more than 600 boxes of 2020 election ballots and records seized from Fulton County by the FBI.

U.S. District Judge Jean-Paul Boulee issued his order on May 6, denying Fulton County’s formal motion to force the government to hand back the physical materials. The county had argued that copies should suffice and that keeping the originals caused irreparable harm. The court disagreed on every count.

The case is now closed, and the originals remain in federal custody while the DOJ investigation continues.

The court order laid out the facts and the legal test in detail.

On January 28, 2026, after obtaining a search warrant signed by a United States magistrate judge, the FBI seized over 600 boxes of Fulton County’s 2020 election records from a county election warehouse. Fulton County officials, including Board of Commissioners Chairman Robert L. “Robb” Pitts, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, and Clerk of Court Che Alexander, filed an emergency Rule 41(g) motion for return of property, then amended it on February 17. Judge Boulee held an evidentiary hearing and received additional evidence and supplemental briefing before ruling.

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Applying the Richey equitable-jurisdiction test, the court required Fulton County to demonstrate callous disregard for its constitutional rights, a genuine need for the original materials rather than copies, irreparable injury if the originals stayed with the government, and no adequate legal remedy. Boulee acknowledged that the search and the underlying affidavit were imperfect and described certain portions as troubling or problematic. Even so, he found the county failed to meet the high legal standard on any of the four factors. He emphasized that Fulton County had copies of the materials and had demonstrated no concrete irreparable harm. The motion was denied and the clerk was directed to close the case.

The judge did not say the FBI’s work was flawless. He said Fulton County’s legal arguments fell short of clearing the bar, and he declined to interrupt an active federal investigation to send the originals back.

Fox News Digital covered the ruling and the Justice Department’s pointed response to its critics.

After Judge Boulee sided with the government, the DOJ’s communications account took direct aim at media commentators who had predicted the administration would lose the Fulton County ballot fight. The department treated the ruling as vindication of its decision to seize the materials in January and keep them under federal control. The decision was described as a win for the Trump administration’s broader push to investigate the 2020 election, with Boulee finding that Fulton County failed to prove its constitutional rights were violated when the FBI took possession of more than 600 boxes of election records.

The underlying FBI affidavit detailed the scope of what investigators were examining: allegations tied to missing ballot images, inconsistent recount totals, and chain-of-custody problems in Fulton County’s handling of the 2020 vote. These categories of irregularities formed the foundation for the search warrant that a magistrate judge approved before the January seizure.

Boulee acknowledged flaws in the affidavit and described some of its statements as troubling. He concluded, however, that those shortcomings did not rise to the high legal threshold required to show callous disregard of the county’s rights. The county’s request to force the physical materials back into local hands was rejected outright.

The Washington Examiner added further context about the scope of the investigation and the judge’s reasoning.

Judge Boulee refused to order the Department of Justice to return thousands of 2020 election ballots seized from Fulton County, terminating the lawsuit brought by county officials after the January raid on a county election warehouse. Boulee, a President Trump appointee confirmed by the Senate in 2020, rejected every argument the county raised in favor of getting the physical records back during the ongoing federal probe.

The FBI seized more than 600 boxes after obtaining a search warrant, and the ruling highlighted the allegations investigators were reviewing: duplicate ballots, missing ballot images, unsigned tabulator tapes, and so-called pristine ballots that appeared never to have been hand-marked. These categories of concern drove the federal investigation from its outset and formed the basis for the warrant application.

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Boulee stated that the law must be applied the same way regardless of politics or public controversy. He also observed that the outcome could have been different had the seizure interfered with conducting an active election, but the 2020 election had already been conducted and certified years ago. Because the county retained copies and no live election was disrupted, the equitable case for emergency return of originals collapsed.

Because no active election was disrupted and the county retained copies, the court found no emergency justifying the return of originals while federal investigators are still working through them.

A Rumble flashback clip circulating before the ruling provides useful background on why physical custody of these records matters so much to election-integrity advocates.

The clip focused on earlier claims from the FBI affidavit and framed them as evidence that Fulton County knowingly failed to follow federal election-law requirements for preserving and handling ballots. The commentary emphasized that investigators were looking at multiple categories of irregularities, including duplicate ballots and procedural failures, and argued that the FBI had substantiated five major irregularities under Georgia law. The clip also claimed Fulton County had admitted to double-counting ballots and failing to follow required procedures during the 2020 election cycle.

The core argument was that physical election materials matter because digital copies alone cannot answer every chain-of-custody, ballot-handling, or duplicate-ballot question. Whether a ballot was machine-marked or hand-marked, whether tabulator tapes were signed, whether originals were substituted with duplicates without proper documentation: these are questions that require the physical evidence. Scanned images do not preserve the paper characteristics, ink type, fold marks, or other forensic indicators that investigators rely on when examining original ballots and records.

Those are characterizations from the video commentary, and the court has not issued findings on the substance of the alleged irregularities. The underlying logic, however, is exactly why the DOJ fought to retain the originals and why the judge’s ruling carries weight. If copies were truly equivalent, there would be no reason for federal investigators to insist on keeping 600-plus boxes of paper in government custody.

Fulton County threw everything it had at this motion: emergency filings, an amended petition, an evidentiary hearing, and supplemental briefing. The court weighed all of it and said no. The physical 2020 election records stay with the FBI, and the federal probe into what happened in Fulton County continues.

For years, anyone who raised questions about Fulton County’s 2020 election handling was told to sit down and accept the results. Now a federal judge has allowed the Trump DOJ to keep possession of the actual ballots and records while investigators do their work. The county wanted those boxes back. They are not getting them.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
 

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