Albus Thomas
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MERRI OK
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U.S. District Court Judge J. P. Boulee, who is overseeing the Fulton County, Georgia, ballot case, has quashed the subpoena for FBI Agent Hugh Raymond Evans, who provided the one affidavit used to support the search warrant to seize the ballots from the 2020 election, reported Lawfare legal analyst Anna Bower.
It's a huge hit before the Friday evidentiary hearing over the raid on the elections office.
Fulton County officials believe that Evans deliberately misled the judge in the case by promoting 2020 election conspiracy theories from one of President Donald Trump's own allies to get the warrant for the ballots.
Boulee was appointed by the first Trump administration.
“In searching for evidence of a crime in Fulton County, President Trump has, in some sense, returned to the scene of his own…Now Trump is using the power of the federal government to seize the very ballots cast by voters whose will he once sought to subvert," Bower wrote in her piece, walking through the specifics of the case ahead of the hearing.
Marc Elias' Democracy Docket explained that the Justice Department has already made one mistake in revealing information about the probe when it unsealed the affidavit.
"Following the raid, the DOJ also initially told Fulton County officials that it wouldn’t oppose Evans testifying about the affidavit," the report explained. "Thomas Albus, a Missouri-based U.S. attorney overseeing the DOJ’s probe into the 2020 vote in Georgia, said in February that he couldn’t imagine Evan’s testimony 'will be an issue.'"
The DOJ then made a huge pivot three days later.
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an 2 26
Lawyers representing Fulton County, Georgia, in the ballot seizure case ripped into the U.S. Attorney appointed by the Trump administration, per a new filing released Wednesday evening, accusing him of an "abrupt flip-flop" and other shifts that have impeded the flow of the case.
The filing was submitted to the U.S. District Court of Northern Georgia's Atlanta division by Fulton County's legal team. Among other things, it accused U.S. Attorney Thomas Albus, a St. Louis-based prosecutor tipped to handle the case by Donald Trump's Justice Department, of reversing his promises about returning the original ballots seized and allowing an FBI agent to testify, as explained by Josh Gerstein, a senior legal reporter for Politico.
"Fulton County lawyers claim 'abrupt flip-flop[s]' by specially-designated prosecutor Tom Albus in 2020-ballot-seizure case, including whether FBI agent would testify and whether original ballots could be returned to local officials," Gerstein wrote in a post to X.
Fulton County is suing the federal government for the return of 2020 ballotsseized from an election center in Atlanta last month in an FBI raid. The Trump administration claimed that the seizures were part of an investigation into Trump's debunked claims of election fraud.
The filing primarily revolved around the Fulton County lawyers objecting to Albus's reversal on a promise to "expeditiously make copies of the seized election records, return the originals and a copy to Fulton County, and voluntarily stay its review of the copied records pending the Court’s final decision in this matter." Albus later "inexplicably withdrew that offer," which then required the court to "to set the matter down for an expedited hearing." He is now willing to turn over copies of the ballots, in exchange for Fulton County's case against the federal government getting dismissed.
"Respondent has since represented to the Court that returning the originals to [Fulton County]—and even allowing testimony in the very hearing it originally agreed to—would somehow compromise 'an ongoing criminal investigation,' despite its prior representations. Given [Albus's] prior stances, it is hard to make sense of its recent 'offer' to 'discuss' a 'copy.'"
This troublesome shift from Albus, the filing added, "came in the context of its abrupt flip-flop regarding the testimony of [FBI] Special Agent [Hugh] Evans." The Fulton County legal team had earlier this month asked Albus if Evans could give testimony at an evidentiary hearing, to which they claim Albus responded, "I can’t imagine that will be an issue and will give you a firm answer as soon as I can."
The lawyers claim they followed up multiple times about the matter over the course of days, but did not hear back. Albus then moved to quash Evans' giving testimony, "without conferring or notifying" them.
The lawyers suggested that Albus's move to go back on his previous offer about handing over the ballots is part of an effort to avoid a judicial review.
"To the extent that Respondent suggests it is now willing to 'discuss' giving Petitioners a copy of their own records (on the condition that they dismiss this action), it appears to be doing so in an effort to avoid judicial review of an unconstitutional seizure wholly lacking in probable cause," the filing explained. "If Respondent is willing to provide a copy to Petitioners (as it claims), it is evident that doing so will not compromise an ongoing investigation. Respondent’s remaining arguments are meritless..."
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MMA
February 16, 2026, edition of MS NOW's The Weeknight
SYMONE SANDERS (CO-HOST): Clean up on aisle nine, Angelo. Here's the thing. Who are the right people? These are the questions. Who are the right people? For whom do we want them voting for? And furthermore, where is the evidence of the widespread voter fraud? Even the Heritage Foundation has not determined there is widespread voter fraud. Their own data and research says there's not. So is this a case of if they just say it enough, people start to believe it?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, so I think that's part of it, you know, in terms of their execution. But there's something to also consider, is that where's the evidence when you can actually find them? There are people now, there's not evidence, but the source of it is there's this constellation of right-wing influencers that have been pickled in these lies now for six years. And they're not just out there, you know, talking about it. They're working directly with the Trump administration to say, now it's time, now that you're in power, go back and find proof of the things and the conspiracies that we were pushing five or six years ago.
So if you look at what happened in Fulton County. Just a week before the raid in Fulton County, Patrick Byrne, who was in the Oval Office in 2020 with Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, saying, seize the -- when Trump said to seize the voting machines, he had to leave a TV hit before it happened to do an emergency meeting at the White House, which apparently was about some upcoming thing related to election conspiracy.
So to me, where's the source? It's all of these influencers out there that they are now basically running the playbook around whatever false claim they have been holding on to for six or seven years. And they're everywhere. There's a bunch of people percolating in Maricopa County now in Arizona. And so that's the thing that's sort of giving it some fuel. Obviously, Trump's own narrative and all the externalities for it. But you can really zero in and that's what you'll find.
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AN 2 26
The Daily Beast reports Georgia officials are “shredding” the FBI’s justification for seizing Fulton County’s 2020 voter rolls, writing in a new filing that their evidence fell “woefully short” of showing probable cause.
“In a petition demanding the return of 2020 election ballots, officials accused the FBI of having ‘serious’ omissions in its … petition for a search warrant to raid the county’s election office near Atlanta,” the Beast reports.
“Instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the affidavit does nothing more than describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election — without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever,” said the filing. The filing also argues that the federal government breached the Fourth Amendment protecting individuals against “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government.
“The Fourth Amendment demands ‘probable cause’ — not ‘possible cause,’” the filing argues.
A former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office had his own issues with the FBI’s rationalization for the seizure and was removed after he raised concerns. Prior probes for fraud had come up empty., and even conservative judges had shut down many of President Donald Trump’s arguments of fraud in 2020.
Fulton County officials told the courts in their Tuesday filing that the Trump administration dredging for evidence in Georgia’s most Democratic County was based on hypotheticals and conspiracy.
“Despite years of investigations of the 2020 election, the affidavit does not identify facts establishing probable cause that anyone committed a crime,” the filing said. “Instead, [the FBI] all but admits that the seizure will yield evidence of a crime only if certain hypotheticals are true.”
The Beast reports local officials also cited FBI witness statements alleging that the search was based on the hope of finding wrongdoing rather than on probable cause.
“It is woefully deficient for an affiant to say that if I develop additional evidence at some later point in time, the seized property would potentially be evidence of a crime,” the filing reads. “Probable cause requires more: a reasonable likelihood that a crime did, in fact, occur.”
“The newest filing … also poked holes in the FBI’s witnesses’ findings that supposedly prompted it to act,” reports the Beast. “’Witness 5’ claimed to have received data that may have shown proof of a crime ‘second hand,’ from an unidentified person, but not to the degree Trump has long alleged. In reality, Witness 5 said that the purported error added votes for Donald Trump—not the other way around.”The Daily Beast reports Georgia officials are “shredding” the FBI’s justification for seizing Fulton County’s 2020 voter rolls, writing in a new filing that their evidence fell “woefully short” of showing probable cause.
“In a petition demanding the return of 2020 election ballots, officials accused the FBI of having ‘serious’ omissions in its … petition for a search warrant to raid the county’s election office near Atlanta,” the Beast reports.
“Instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the affidavit does nothing more than describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election — without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever,” said the filing. The filing also argues that the federal government breached the Fourth Amendment protecting individuals against “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government.
“The Fourth Amendment demands ‘probable cause’ — not ‘possible cause,’” the filing argues.
A former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office had his own issues with the FBI’s rationalization for the seizure and was removed after he raised concerns. Prior probes for fraud had come up empty., and even conservative judges had shut down many of President Donald Trump’s arguments of fraud in 2020.
Fulton County officials told the courts in their Tuesday filing that the Trump administration dredging for evidence in Georgia’s most Democratic County was based on hypotheticals and conspiracy.
“Despite years of investigations of the 2020 election, the affidavit does not identify facts establishing probable cause that anyone committed a crime,” the filing said. “Instead, [the FBI] all but admits that the seizure will yield evidence of a crime only if certain hypotheticals are true.”
The Beast reports local officials also cited FBI witness statements alleging that the search was based on the hope of finding wrongdoing rather than on probable cause.
“It is woefully deficient for an affiant to say that if I develop additional evidence at some later point in time, the seized property would potentially be evidence of a crime,” the filing reads. “Probable cause requires more: a reasonable likelihood that a crime did, in fact, occur.”
“The newest filing … also poked holes in the FBI’s witnesses’ findings that supposedly prompted it to act,” reports the Beast. “’Witness 5’ claimed to have received data that may have shown proof of a crime ‘second hand,’ from an unidentified person, but not to the degree Trump has long alleged. In reality, Witness 5 said that the purported error added votes for Donald Trump—not the other way around.”
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an 2 26
Fulton County, Georgia, has hit back against the Trump administration following the controversial election center raid last month, with Politico's Josh Gerstein reporting that a revised filing from the county accused the government of being "woefully short" on evidence of wrongdoing and violating the Constitution.
Near the end of January, FBI agents raided an election center in Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, and a major focal point for Donald Trump's false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election. Agents gathered various records from the building, including 2020 ballots, as part of an investigation into long-debunked allegations of fraud in the state, which went for Joe Biden by a slim margin in the 2020 race. Critics have also alleged that the raid is intended to fabricate a pretext to allow the federal government to interfere with Georgia elections.
The county has since taken the administration to court over the incident, demanding that they return the ballots seized last month and accusing it of pushing through with the operation despite having no evidence of wrongdoing. A revised filing from Tuesday afternoon made that argument clear, as Gerstein explained in a post to X.
"Revised Fulton County demand for return of 2020 ballots seized by FBI calls evidence 'woefully short' of showing probable cause that a crime was committed," Gerstein wrote. "County says actions would have to be willful to be crimes & no claim/proof of that."
Within the new filing, the county alleged that the sworn affidavits submitted by FBI agents claiming there to be probable cause for the raid were lacking actual evidence, despite a judge later signing off on a warrant for the operation. It also accused the government of violating Fourth Amendment rights against "unreasonable search and seizure."
"In seizing Petitioners’ property by relying on a warrant that was entirely devoid of probable cause, Respondent callously disregarded Petitioners’ rights underthe Fourth Amendment," the county's petition argued. "This flagrant constitutional violation compels immediate equitable relief from this Court—namely, an order requiring Respondent to return Fulton County’s original election records, as well as any copies."
In response to another X user, Gerstein noted that "probable cause to believe a crime was committed" is necessary to get a search and seizure warrant.
Legal experts have previously weighed in on these affidavits after they were unsealed, expressing befuddlement as to how a judge could have signed off on a warrant in response to them. David Becker, the founder and director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told CNN last week that there was "nothing" in them that showed probable cause.
"I have no idea how it was signed off on," Becker said. "When I heard they were unsealing the affidavit, I was actually expecting — even though we knew there would be no actual reality of a crime there, those ballots have been counted multiple times — but I was wondering what the administration would use that was new, that would justify these claims... There was no allegation of intent, which is a necessary element of the crime. In fact, they admit there's no intent that's evident at all."
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AN 2 26
The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken part in meetings since last fall with lawyers tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden.
Thomas Albus, whom Trump appointed last year as U.S. attorney for Missouri’s Eastern District, has had multiple meetings set up with top administration lawyers to discuss election integrity.
At those meetings was Ed Martin, a Justice Department lawyer who until recently led a group investigating what the president has described as the department’s “weaponization” against him and his allies, according to a source familiar with the meetings who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, who has been tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 election, also was directed to join at least one of the meetings, according to the source. Both Martin and Olsen worked on behalf of Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results, and a federal court sanctioned Olsen for making false claims about the reliability of voting machines in Arizona.
The meetings reveal new details about the length of the preparations for, and people involved in, the January FBI raid on Fulton County, which election and legal experts told ProPublica was a significant escalation in Trump’s breaking of democratic norms.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi picked Albus and has granted him special authority to handle election-related cases nationwide, even though his earlier work as a federal prosecutor didn’t involve election law or election-related cases. The meetings with Martin, Olsen and other lawyers for the Justice Department were described by the source as being about “election integrity,” a term the Trump administration has used to describe investigations into its false claims that elections are rigged.
Martin, Olsen, Albus and others declined to answer questions about the meetings and other detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House and the Justice Department also did not respond to questions.
The meetings came at a particularly crucial time.
Martin’s efforts to obtain election materials from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, had hit a wall. In August, he sent a letter demanding that a Fulton County judge allow him to access tens of thousands of absentee ballots for “an investigation into election integrity here at the Department of Justice,” but he had reportedly received no reply.
Martin explained to Steve Bannon on a podcast that aired around the time of the meetings that although the White House had given Olsen the official mandate to reinvestigate the 2020 election, “inside DOJ, myself and a couple of others have been working also on the same topic” — including getting the Fulton County ballots. But Martin described progress as a “challenge.”
Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, asked why Martin didn’t just “get some U.S. marshals to go down and seize” the ballots.
Martin suggested it was easier said than done, but agreed: “Look, we’ve got to get” the ballots.
Before long, Albus and Olsen were interviewing witnesses for their case. Kevin Moncla, a conservative researcher, told ProPublica that he spoke to Albus and Olsen a couple of times, both together and separately, around the turn of the year. He identified himself as Witness 7 in the affidavit that persuaded a judge to sign off on the raid, and the affidavit mentions a 263-page report he authored that activists believe may have justified the raid, ProPublica has reported. Moncla has a long history of working with Olsen, dating back to an attempt by Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, to overturn her 2022 loss.
Just a few weeks after those interviews, in late January, Albus was listed as the government attorney on the search warrant that authorized the seizure of roughly 700 boxes of election material in Georgia, far outside of Albus’ usual jurisdiction.
Former U.S. attorneys from both parties said it was rare for a federal prosecutor from one region to take on cases in other states or be granted the nationwide authority Albus has been given.
Under Trump, senior roles across the White House, DOJ and FBI have increasingly been filled by a small, interconnected group of Missouri lawyers with longstanding ties to one another.
Another top federal official in the meetings was Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. Before joining the Justice Department, Osete worked in the Missouri attorney general’s office, where he represented the state in at least five lawsuits against the Biden administration regarding vaccine mandates, immigration and other policies. Osete did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions.
When the FBI raided Fulton County’s election center, Andrew Bailey, another lawyer from the same political circles, was in charge. Before joining the FBI as deputy director, he had used his position as Missouri’s attorney general to pursue high-profile cases against prominent Democrats and said he supported all efforts to investigate Biden, his family and his administration.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to answer detailed questions about Bailey.
Last year, Roger Keller, a veteran federal prosecutor from Albus’ office, was brought in to help prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud in Virginia after the original career prosecutors on the case were replaced by political appointees. After a judge dismissed the case, two federal grand juries declined to indict James again, and Keller returned to Missouri.
Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, previously served as Missouri’s solicitor general under state attorneys general Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. He and Schmitt signed Missouri’s amicus brief supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Sauer later represented Trump in his presidential-immunity case, successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump was entitled to broad immunity from prosecution.
Albus’ connection to the other Missouri lawyers goes back decades. Unlike some of the others, though, he has never held elected office or had a high public profile, nor has he waged culture-war campaigns like Bailey or Martin. Instead, he spent most of his career as a federal prosecutor and as a judge in a Missouri state circuit court.
Emails show Albus exchanging brief messages with Martin in 2007, when Albus was an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis and Martin was chief of staff to then-Gov. Matt Blunt. The emails were part of records from the Blunt administration that became public after being released under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.
In the email exchange, Albus put in a good word for a St. Louis lawyer who was a finalist for an appellate court judgeship, and Blunt ultimately selected that candidate.
Albus served as first assistant to Schmitt from early 2019 until Albus was appointed by Gov. Mike Parson to fill a circuit court judge vacancy in early 2020. Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, praised Albus as “one of the finest prosecutors I have ever met” when endorsing his nomination for U.S. attorney in December.
Lawyers who appeared in Albus’ court rated him as well prepared, professional and attentive, according to Missouri judicial performance reviews. They said he followed the evidence, applied the law correctly and gave clear reasons for his rulings.
Albus came under more critical scrutiny after Trump named him interim U.S. attorney last summer. Much of that attention centered on a fraud case he inherited when he took office. Prosecutors alleged that developers in St. Louis falsely claimed to be using minority- and women-owned subcontractors to qualify for city tax breaks, conduct the Justice Department has historically treated as wire fraud.
One of the defendants was represented by lawyer Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi.
The developers’ lawyers argued that even if the government’s claims were true, they were legally irrelevant because the Trump administration had taken the position that tax breaks based on race or gender were unlawful. Albus accepted those arguments and dropped the case. As part of the resolution, Albus personally hand-delivered to City Hall a check of about $1 million from one of the developers’ companies as restitution. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he intervened “to make it clear” his office wanted to drop charges and hand-delivered the check “to make sure they got it.”
In a letter to Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Congressional Democrats said the dismissal of the St. Louis case and other cases in which the Justice Department intervened on behalf of Brad Bondi’s clients raised “significant broader ethical concerns.” In the St. Louis case, and in a separate matter involving another Brad Bondi client whose charges were dropped, a Justice Department spokesperson said Pam Bondi’s relationship with her brother had “no bearing on the outcome.”
A spokesperson for the developers said their lawyers communicated only with the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis about the case and had no direct contact with Pam Bondi. He said the dismissal reflected “a recognition that this case should never have been brought in the first place.” Brad Bondi did not respond to a request for comment.
Weeks later, around the time of Albus’ meetings about election integrity, he posed with Martin in Martin’s office, flanked by a framed photo of Trump and a copy of “A Choice, Not an Echo,” the influential conservative manifesto by Phyllis Schlafly arguing that Republican voters were being manipulated by party elites and the media.
Martin posted the photo on X with the caption, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?”
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2 26 AN
With President Donald Trump suffering from weak approval ratings in countless recent polls and Democrats having performed well in a series of late 2025 and early 2026 elections, Democratic strategists are feeling cautiously optimistic about their prospects in this year's midterms. A Texas State Senate special election on Saturday, January 31 in the Ft. Word suburbs was especially encouraging for them: Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by 14 percent in a district that Trump won by 18 percent in 2024.
But progressive legal scholar Elie Mystal, in an article published by The Nation on February 5, warns that Trump and his allies will do everything possible to rig the midterms against Democrats. And the attorney fears that Trump opponents aren't doing enough to fight back.
"To ignore the threat posed by Trump, to pretend like everything is going to be OK, to assume that upstanding members of the courts will rise to prevent the theft of the election is to stick your head in the sand," Mystal emphasizes. "Trump and the Republicans have no intention of letting the upcoming midterms — in which Republicans are predicted to lose control of the House — proceed fairly. They're attacking the election through legislative, law-enforcement, and political means."
Mystal describes a variety of MAGA tactics.
"Republicans in the House have already passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act)," the legal expert notes. "The bill radically reshapes the voter registration process by essentially repealing the Motor Voter Act. Instead of allowing people to register with a driver's license, the SAVE Act requires them to show additional identification, like a passport or a birth certificate, in order to register…. The SAVE Act isn't even the most dangerous thing Republicans in Congress have cooked up. That dubious honor belongs to the Make Elections Great Again Act (MEGA Act), so named because these people are obviously in a cult."
Mystal continues, "The MEGA Act includes all of the same requirements to register to vote as the SAVE Act, but also, requires these new forms of identification to be shown by voters when they try to cast their ballots…. All of this would be bad enough, but Republicans aren't just hoping for legislation that will allow them to suppress the vote in 2026, they're also putting in place the legal ability to steal the votes that get through these gauntlets. Last week, the FBI raided the Fulton County elections operations center, which covers Atlanta, looking for 2020 ballots…. If the FBI can seize old, 2020 ballots in the name of fishing for 'election fraud,' it's not hard to imagine them seizing ballots and voting machines trying to stop 'fraud' in 2026. Attorney General Pam Bondi has also appointed, essentially, a 'special counsel,' Thomas Albus, and given him the authority to seize ballots."
Mystal points out that Steve Bannon, host of the "War Room" vodcast and former White House chief strategist in the first Trump Administration, is flat-out calling for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to "surround the polls come November."
"Who knows what kind of ICE presence we'’ll see on Election Day?," Mystal warns. "Who knows how much violence they'll use to keep people from voting? But you'd be a rank fool to think the answers to those questions are 'nothing' and 'none.'"
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RAW
United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard steps out of a vehicle outside the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant there in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia, U.S. January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
The FBI conducted what a legal analyst described as a "highly unusual" search of an election office in the Georgia county where President Donald Trump and his allies were indicted for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Fulton County commissioner Mo Ivory challenged the warrant as “incorrect legally” seeking all ballots from that election and other evidence, and the FBI then obtained a corrected warrant listing Thomas Albus, an interim U.S. attorney in Missouri, as the government attorney, and CNN's Joey Jackson listed other details about the probe that stood out as odd.
"It's rather unusual," said Jackson, a former prosecutor, "inasmuch as this has been investigated and litigated and there have been a determination, there's been determinations as to no fraud. There's been three recounts, one of them manually. There's been inspections. The Trump [Department of Justice] itself has given the indication that there's no fraud here."
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"Why is that relevant to your question?" he added. "It's relevant because when you're looking at a criminal warrant, you're looking at evidence of criminality. You're looking at making a determination as to whether there was voter fraud in terms of people who voted that should not have voted or any other type of deception, and so this magistrate would have had to draw some conclusions, and the reason I say that it's somewhat interesting is because if you have this previous litigation, this is not new, this is from 2020, and you have massive investigations and you have no determination as to criminality. What are we doing here?"
Trump's DOJ had sued Fulton County last year seeking ballot stubs, signature envelopes and other evidence from the 2020 election, but that case appeared to be going nowhere before federal investigators seized that evidence themselves.
"The civil suit is moot, and just backing up on that, this past October, as in 2025, there was a demand served by DOJ," Jackson explained. "They were relying upon the Civil Rights Act of 1960, and that act required that you retain records in terms of voting and that you produce them on demand. However, the issue is relating to discrimination. This was a law that was passed in terms of the Jim Crow South people who were excluded from voting, and so what ended up happening is, is that the the state said, no, we're not producing those records, and they were in civil litigation, and guess what records they were looking to get produced? The same records that when the state said, we're not giving them to you and filed a motion to dismiss three weeks ago saying, we're not giving you boxes of our voting records."
"Those are the same boxes that were just taken out, 700 of them," Jackson added. "So they did an end-around [on] the lawsuit. The lawsuit, in all measures, is now moot because the records DOJ was seeking in the civil lawsuit, not criminal, has just been gotten by the FBI."
The FBI currently has custody of that evidence, which the state has argued should be held under seal to preserve their integrity, but a judge had not yet issued a ruling about whether Georgia had to turn over those records to the DOJ.
"State officials are now saying, well, wait a second, if the narrative of the federal government is that there was fraud here, if the issue of the federal government is you did nothing right, state officials and everyone was rampantly going to vote if they're in the custody of the feds," Jackson said. "Now, who's to know that they're not going to be manipulated or otherwise used for the narrative of the federal government? That's the concern."
FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, the former Missouri attorney general who has stated the 2020 election "absolutely stolen" from Trump, was present during the search, in addition to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Jackson was shocked to see them at the scene.
"It's so highly unusual, I'm just saying, what are we talking about now?" Jackson said. "First of all, taking a step back from that, the deputy director of the FBI, generally, they stay at headquarters. To give you some context, when Mar-a-Lago was raided in 2022, that was done by field operatives. The head of the agency and other important, right, everyone is important, but in terms of the people who run the agency, we're back at headquarters, the field-level supervisors were there executing that warrant here, right. You have a situation where the deputy director of the FBI is there, and the person who runs national security, who is in charge of foreign affairs, is here"
"It's unbelievable and it's unprecedented and we are in another world," he added, "and the major concern here, I'll just say very quickly, they're they're trying, the federal government, to do this in other jurisdictions. In fact, in Oregon, a judge made a ruling that, no, you're not getting these records. So I think more of this is to come in other areas."
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OFF BS
July 28, 2025
Senator Schmitt Praises Trump Nominees for Missouri U.S. Attorneys
WASHINGTON –U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) released the following statement after President Trump tapped two qualified Missourians to serve as U.S. Attorneys for the Western and Eastern Districts of Missouri. Both nominees will assume their role as interim U.S. Attorney for their respective district on August 1st.
“President Trump is the President of law and order, and I’m glad to see him select two exceptional interim U.S. Attorneys who will protect Missourians’ rights and promote law and order in Missouri’s Eastern and Western Districts. When I served as Missouri Attorney General, Thomas Albus played a key role as First Assistant in my Attorney General office as we worked to defend the Show Me State from big government overreach, and I’m impressed with Matthew Price’s extensive prosecutorial experience and leadership abilities. I’m thankful for President Trump’s attention to Missouri. Albus and Price are law men, through and through. It is my expectation that each will do a great job, and I look forward to seeing them swiftly confirmed,” said Senator Schmitt.
The interim appointments include:
- Thomas Albus, who worked for Senator Schmitt during his tenure as Missouri’s Attorney General as his First Assistant and served for 17 years as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri, to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.
- Matthew Price, an experienced corporate lawyer who previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney, as a State Prosecutor, and as a Chief Legal Officer for a major Missouri company, to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
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President-elect Donald Trump tapped two Missouri members of the legal team for jobs in the new administration, naming D. John Sauer solicitor general and Will Scharf assistant to the president and White House staff secretary.
Sauer, who lives in the St. Louis suburb of Town and Country, was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 through 2022 under Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. In that job, he led Missouri’s unsuccessful effort alongside other GOP attorneys general to keep Trump in power by challenging the 2020 election results.
More recently, Sauer successfully represented Trump at the U.S. Supreme Court in his bid for immunity from being criminally charged for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The justices voted 6-3 along ideological lines in July to give Trump immunity from some official acts he took as president.
As solicitor general, Sauer will be responsible for litigating the federal government’s positions at the U.S. Supreme Court.
“He is a legit genius, an incredible lawyer and I’m thrilled for him and his family,” Schmitt posted on social media.
Scharf, who ran unsuccessfully against Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in the GOP primary, briefly served in the administration of former Gov. Eric Greitens before moving to Washington, D.C., to work for the advocacy organization Judicial Crisis Network, focused on judicial confirmations and nominations, most notably Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In 2020, he returned to Missouri to work as an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis. Alongside Sauer, Scharf was part of the team advising and defending Trump in his myriad criminal trials over the last year.
In his new job, Scharf will decide which memos, briefings and reports will go to the president and who should weigh in on issues and speeches.
“Will is a highly skilled attorney who will be a crucial part of my White House team,” Trump said in announcing Scharf’s appointment, later adding: “Will is going to make us proud as we Make America Great Again.”
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cofman
Federal agents executed a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office in Georgia on Jan. 28, seizing 2020 ballots and related election materials in an investigation tied to alleged election law violations. The warrant listed a Missouri-based prosecutor, Thomas Albus, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, as the Justice Department attorney on the document, an unusual choice for a Georgia-based investigation.
The involvement of a Missouri prosecutor in a Georgia warrant has fueled questions and controversy about the federal operation. Fulton County officials and national reporters noted that Theodore Hertzberg, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, was not named on the warrant, and DOJ has not publicly explained the arrangement.
Local authorities confirmed the FBI, operating under a “court-authorized activity,” found and loaded hundreds of boxes of ballots, voting rolls and machine tapes into trucks during the multi-hour search. It is unclear what evidence was presented to justify the warrant, as the supporting affidavit remains sealed.
One potential reason for Albus’s appearance on the warrant may stem from a special DOJ appointment. According to a Bloomberg Law report, Attorney General Pam Bondi quietly designated Albus under a federal statute to coordinate election integrity cases nationwide, allowing him to sign warrants and pursue investigations outside his home district.
Follow The Coffman Chronicle on NewsBreak for daily breaking political coverage.
Still, county officials and outside legal analysts say DOJ has not clarified why Georgia’s own U.S. Attorney was not listed, raising unanswered questions about the case’s handling and federal oversight.
“This is a highly unusual setup,” said one legal analyst familiar with federal election investigations, “and that’s why everyone wants to know just what legal basis exists for it.”
The raid and use of a Missouri official to authorize a Georgia warrant is now drawing scrutiny from lawmakers in both states, and legal challenges may follow as county officials seek more transparency on the federal action and detainee custody of the ballots.
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REUTERS
Nov 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced three federal district court judge nominees, including a former law clerk to conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a lawyer pursuing litigation over the participation of transgender athletes in women's college sports.
The three new picks to serve as trial court judges in Indiana, Missouri and Tennessee brought to 34 the number of judicial nominees the Republican president has announced in his second term as he works to further shift the judiciary's ideological balance to the right.
The Republican-led Senate has confirmed 19 of them, adding to the 234 judicial nominees whose appointments Trump secured during his first term as president.
The latest nominees include Brian Lea, a former Thomas clerk and partner at Jones Day who joined the U.S. Department of Justice near the start of Trump's return to office and was picked to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.
Lea, a deputy associate attorney general, has served as a lead defender of efforts by the National Institutes of Health and other agencies under Trump to sharply cut research funding provided to universities, moves that have been repeatedly blocked by judges in Boston.
"In his new role, Brian will boldly defend our Constitution, and prioritize LAW AND ORDER in Tennessee — HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN," Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
To fill a district court seat in the Southern District of Indiana, Trump tapped Justin Olson, a lawyer at Kroger Gardis & Regas whom the president said "has been fighting tirelessly to keep men out of women’s sports."
Olson with other lawyers has been representing former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines and other current and former college athletes in a lawsuit challenging now-rescinded NCAA policies that allowed transgender women to compete in women's sports as long as they met testosterone limits on a sport-by-sport basis.
A federal judge in Atlanta in September dismissed much of the lawsuit but allowed the plaintiffs to continue pursuing a claim arising out of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Trump also said he is nominating Platte County Circuit Court Judge Megan Benton in Missouri to serve as a life-tenured judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
She is the daughter of U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton, a member of the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who last month announced that he plans to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement for judges, creating a vacancy on the appeals court that Trump can fill.
Trump in announcing Megan Benton's nomination noted her prior tenure as a prosecutor and said she "is currently delivering strong results for the Rule of Law."
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GGL 1 26
[### Eastern District of Missouri | Meet the U.S. Attorney
Department of Justice (.gov)
https://www.justice.gov › usao-edmo › meet-us-attorney](https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmo/meet-us-attorney)
Aug 7, 2025 — In 2019, he joined the Missouri Attorney General's Office, becoming First Assistant to then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt. In 2020, Mr. Albus ...Read more
Missing: ALBA GOP
[### Trump plans to tap St. Louis County judge as U.S. Attorney
STLPR
https://www.stlpr.org › government-politics-issues › tru...](https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2025-07-15/trump-plans-to-tap-st-louis-county-judge-and-former-prosecutor-as-missouri-u-s-attorneys)
Jul 15, 2025 — President Donald Trump is planning to nominate a St. Louis County judge and a former prosecutor for Missouri's two US attorney posts.Read more
Missing: ALBA GOP
[### Bondi Hands St. Louis Prosecutor Nationwide Election ...
Bloomberg Law News
https://news.bloomberglaw.com › us-law-week › bondi-...](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/bondi-hands-st-louis-prosecutor-nationwide-election-fraud-remit)
1 day ago — The St. Louis-based US attorney overseeing the FBI search warrant executed on Fulton County's election office Wednesday received a special ...
Missing: ALBA | Show results with: ALBA
[### U.S. Attorney Tom Albus Appointed to Continue by Court
Department of Justice (.gov)
https://www.justice.gov › usao-edmo › us-attorney-tom...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmo/pr/us-attorney-tom-albus-appointed-continue-court)
Nov 25, 2025 — Trump is pending in the U.S. Senate, having been favorably reported out of the Judiciary committee on October 16th. “I am grateful for the vote ...Read more
Missing: ALBA GOP
[### Eric Schmitt Throws Support Behind Top Trump Judicial ...
YouTube · Forbes Breaking News
600+ views · 1 month ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvPbsPhwcyk)
I rise today to wholeheartedly endorse the nomination of tom albus to be the united states attorney for the eastern district of missouri.
Missing: ALBA GOP
[### Senator Schmitt Praises Trump Nominees for Missouri U.S. ...
Senator Eric Schmitt (.gov)
https://www.schmitt.senate.gov › media › press-releases](https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/senator-schmitt-praises-trump-nominees-for-missouri-u-s-attorneys/)
Jul 28, 2025 — WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) released the following statement after President Trump tapped two qualified Missourians to ...Read more
Missing: GOP | Show results with: GOP
[### Nominations Sent to the Senate
The White House (.gov)
https://www.whitehouse.gov › ... › Presidential Actions](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/nominations-sent-to-the-senate-00e4/)
Jul 30, 2025 — Thomas Albus, of Missouri, to be United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri for the term of four years.
Missing: ALBA GOP
[### Trump plans to nominate St. Louis County Circuit Judge ...
Facebook · KCUR 89.3
7 reactions · 6 months ago](https://www.facebook.com/KCURKansasCity/posts/trump-plans-to-nominate-st-louis-county-circuit-judge-thomas-albus-to-be-the-us-/1356683646459805/)
Trump plans to nominate St. Louis County Circuit Judge Thomas Albus to be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Missing: ALBA | Show results with: ALBA
[### Trump taps former Thomas clerk, transgender sports foe for ...
Reuters
https://www.reuters.com › legal › government › trump-...](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-taps-former-thomas-clerk-transgender-sports-foe-judgeships-2025-11-14/)
Nov 14, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced three federal district court judge nominees, including a former law clerk to conservative ...
Missing: ALBA GOP
[### President Trump Names Two Members of Missouri ...
Missouri Attorney General's Office (.gov)
https://ago.mo.gov › OLD Bailey Press Releases](https://ago.mo.gov/president-trump-names-two-members-of-missouri-attorney-general-offices-team-to-serve-as-federal-judgeships/)
May 6, 2025 — Two attorneys from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey's Office have been nominated to serve as federal judges on the US District Court for the Eastern ...Read more
Missing: ALBA GOP
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duck 1 26
factually.co
Did a Missouri attorney sign the warrant to raid an Ge...
1 day agoThe warrant used in the FBI search of Fulton County 's elections office listed Thomas Albus, the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri, as the attorney for the government on the document, but it was signed by a federal magistrate judge — not by Albus — and the FBI later obtained a corrected warrant that again listed ...
Bloomberg Law News
Bondi Hands St. Louis Prosecutor Nationwide Election Fraud Remit
1 day agoThomas Albus, the Trump-appointed chief prosecutor in the Eastern District of Missouri, appeared on the FBI's court-approved warrant—rather than the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia—that enabled agents to seize records from the Atlanta government building at the center of the president's discredited 2020 election conspiracy.
MSN
Top election denier had key role in FBI's Georgia election ... - MSN
Albus previously worked at the Missouri attorney general's office as the First Assistant to then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt, while Schmitt actively worked to overturn the results of the 2020 ...
Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com › fbi-raid-fulton-county-unusual
Ex-prosecutor raises red flag over 'highly unusual' detail of Georgia ...
1 day agoThe FBI conducted what a legal analyst described as a "highly unusual" search of an election office in the Georgia county where President Donald Trump and his allies were indicted for their ...
thetonymichaels.substack.com
https://thetonymichaels.substack.com › p › why-did-a-missouri-us-attorney-sign
Why Did a Missouri U.S. Attorney Sign Off on the Fulton County FBI ...
TodayThe warrant listed a Missouri-based prosecutor, Thomas Albus, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, as the Justice Department attorney on the document, an unusual choice for a Georgia-based investigation.
STLtoday.com
St. Louis federal prosecutor signed Georgia election warrant
1 day agoWhen federal agents descended upon an elections center in Georgia this week, an unusual name appeared on the warrant authorizing the search: Missouri U.S. Attorney Thomas Albus.
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2026 › jan › 28 › fbi-search-warrant-fulton-county-georgia
FBI executes search warrant at election office in Fulton county, Georgia
2 days agoThe FBI executed a search warrant at the election office in Fulton county, Georgia, on Wednesday for records related to the 2020 election, according to a spokesperson for the county and the FBI.
Democracy Docket
FBI's Fulton County raid may have been illegal, legal experts warn. But ...
1 day agoSome observers also questioned why the attorney signing off on the application was Thomas Albus, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. Bloomberg Law reported Thursday that Bondi had quietly assigned Albus to investigate election integrity cases nationwide. Regardless of who signed it, the warrant has drawn ...
US News
FBI Seizure of Georgia Ballots Reflects Pursuit of Trump's 2020 ...
1 day agoThe attorney for the government identified on the warrant cover sheet is Thomas Albus, the interim U.S. attorney in the eastern district of Missouri, rather than the U.S. attorney based in Atlanta.
New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › 2026 › 01 › 28 › us › politics › fbi-search-election-center-georgia.html
F.B.I. Agents Search Georgia Election Center - The New York Times
2 days agoIn an unusual twist, the prosecutor listed on the warrant is not from Georgia, but the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Thomas Albus.
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