In April 2026 the Justice Department served a grand jury subpoena on the Fulton County, Georgia, Board of Registration and Elections, demanding that its records custodian appear in federal court with the full 2020 election staff roster, “including names, home addresses, email addresses, and personal phone numbers,” as The New Republic described it. The summons was signed by the Northern District of Georgia's clerk of court on April 17 and became public in a court filing in early May. County attorneys said it could reach nearly 3,000 county employees, temporary poll workers and volunteers.
According to the county's filing, as reported by CBS News, the subpoena was issued by a federal prosecutor tied to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of North Carolina and directed the county to send the information to federal officials, not to the grand jury. On May 4, 2026, the county filed a 27-page motion to quash it, arguing it was meant “to target, harass, and punish the President's perceived political opponents” and that, because the statutes of limitations for any 2020 election crimes have expired, no prosecution could follow. The county also argued the demand could make poll workers less likely to serve in future elections.
Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the purpose was “to intimidate workers in our county, to discourage people from voting,” and vowed to fight “with every possible resource.” In a statement he called it “yet another act of outrageous federal overreach designed to intimidate and to chill participation in elections.” The Justice Department argued in court that the subpoena was the “next step in the normal investigative process.”
The subpoena followed the FBI's January 2026 search of Fulton County's election hub, which seized roughly 700 boxes of 2020 election documents; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accompanied the agents (see FBI Seizure of Fulton County 2020 Ballots). Fulton is Georgia's most populous county and a Democratic stronghold, and it was at the center of Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia. Recounts affirmed Joe Biden's narrow win, and earlier investigations found no merit to claims of rampant fraud or intentional misconduct by Fulton election workers.
Update (October 2, 2026): on July 7, 2026, U.S. District Judge William Ray, a Trump appointee, quashed the subpoena. He called its scope “staggering” and wrote: “Given the low need for the subpoenaed information and the highly burdensome nature of the disclosure of the same, the Subpoena is unreasonable and must be quashed.” Ray noted the statute of limitations had passed and wrote that grand juries working with prosecutors does “not give the DOJ the right to use the Grand Jury to do whatever the DOJ wants.”
Correction (October 2, 2026): we removed several claims that no source in this entry supports: a Heritage Foundation figure of about 85 noncitizen-voting cases; the statement that poll-worker names are not historically considered material to fraud investigations; the characterization of Gabbard's presence at the January raid as illegal; Trump addressing agents by speakerphone; FBI Director Kash Patel's “arrests coming soon” remark; and Trump's “find 11,780 votes” call. The subpoena is now described as a grand jury subpoena served by out-of-district prosecutors, as court filings show.