Judge quashes Justice Department subpoena for information about 2020 election workers in Georgia

By Tierney Sneed, Katelyn Polantz, Hannah Rabinowitz, Jason Morris, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge blocked a grand jury subpoena for information about 2020 election workers in Georgia, a rebuff to the Justice Department’s investigation into how the election was handled in the Atlanta area.

The Georgia election had been a frequent target of President Donald Trump’s election-rigging claims.

US District Judge William Ray called the breadth of the subpoena seeking information about Fulton County election workers “staggering.” He said that the use of the subpoena power to investigate the 2020 election was not legitimate, given the statute of limitations for any potential crime.

It was revealed during a prior court hearing that the Justice Department intended to interview election workers.

“In this Court’s view, the DOJ does not possess a need to enforce the Subpoena greater than the burden of disclosure on Fulton County, and as such, the Court will not enforce it,” he said.

The federal court proceeding revealed two reasons the Justice Department wanted to re-examine the 2020 election result in Fulton County.

Federal investigators alleged Fulton County had potentially failed to preserve its images of 2020 ballots “for the time required by law,” the judge said in the order Tuesday.

The Justice Department also “alleges that a certain number of the actual 2020 ballots that it seized pursuant to a search warrant look suspicious,” the judge noted.

The judge said it was possible the Justice Department wasn’t using a valid grand jury action in asking for 2020 election workers’ personal data.

“No evidence has been presented to the Court that the actual Grand Jury in the Northern District of Georgia seeks this information, as opposed to the out-of-district prosecutors who the DOJ has appointed to lead this inquiry who have served this Subpoena in the name of the Grand Jury,” the judge wrote.

As court losses mount, DOJ makes new push on elections

The Trump administration’s loss Tuesday is one of several court defeats it has suffered as the president remains fixated on his claim of mass election fraud in 2020. In the wake of the losses, the Justice Department this week has made new attempts to insert itself in election administration.

A letter from the Justice Department Civil Rights Division sent to a state elections office and obtained by CNN threatened criminal punishments for election officials who send mail ballots to non-citizens. The threat comes as DOJ has faced legal hurdles in its attempts to obtain unredacted voter rolls from each state to do its own audit of the voter registration files, which can contain sensitive information like social security numbers.

Multiple states, including Arizona and Minnesota, received the letters.

“Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s [voter rolls] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability,” Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon wrote in the letter. Any other “intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens” could also be a federal crime, she said.

Michigan’s secretary of state and attorney general said Monday that three cities also received letters from Dhillon, which they say requested “various documents” from the cities and state the department’s intention to send federal election monitors to polling locations during the August primary election. The cities — Lansing, East Lansing and Detroit — are all Democratic strongholds.

The statement does not say what documents were requested. CNN has not independently reviewed the letter.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not address whether it has requested documents from the cities, but said it does plan to send election monitors. Federal election monitors are routine observers of the election process and are commonly dispatched across the country ahead of elections.

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor and City Clerk Chris Swope said in a joint statement that the city welcomes election monitors, and will “gladly provide documents and information in response to all lawful requests.”

“Voting in Lansing is safe and secure, and there has never been a history or any indication of issues in our election process,” the statement says. “But let’s be clear, Lansing voters will not be harassed or intimidated by election monitors from either the federal government or any other group.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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