On January 28, the FBI carried out a search warrant related to the 2020 presidential election at Fulton County’s election office. According to The Guardian, the warrant “sought all ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls.” MS NOW reported that the raid came after “the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office was forced out … after questioning the Justice Department’s renewed push to probe Fulton County’s role in the 2020 election.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who is reportedly “leading the administration’s effort to re-examine the election and look for potential crimes,” was on-site during the search, and brokered a call between Trump and FBI agents on the ground. [The Guardian, 1/28/26; MS NOW, 1/30/26; The Wall Street Journal, 1/29/26; The New York Times, 2/2/26]

The FBI's raid comes weeks after the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who MAGA influencers suggested was linked to their conspiracy theories. Election deniers have baselessly claimed for years that Venezuela was involved in supposed 2020 election fraud. [Media Matters, 1/5/26; The New York Times, 11/19/20]

In an interview after the Fulton County raid, Trump said he wants Republicans to “nationalize the voting.” During an interview with podcast host and former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Trump said, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least — many, 15 places.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” He also invoked the raid, saying, “We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes — we have states that I won that show I didn’t win. Now you’re going see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order, the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things.” [NBC News, 2/2/26]

Right-wing figures and Trump allies, including those who have spread claims of election fraud, have repeatedly urged Trump to declare a “national emergency” to enforce his preferred election policies. Some of these figures have suggested that the president use “plenary authority” or claimed to be “encouraging” Trump to declare a national emergency “to make sure that the elections in 2026 are secure.” One of those figures, Heather Honey, has since been appointed deputy assistant secretary for election integrity at the Department of Homeland Security. Another figure, Jerome Corsi, has claimed for months that he was involved in efforts to craft an upcoming Trump executive order to “declare a national security emergency” that would “be implemented for the 2026 elections.” [Media Matters, 10/28/25]

Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne told LindellTV’s Emerald Robinson: “I think that you should feel a great sense of vindication” about the Fulton County raid. Byrne — who has been a prominent fundraiser of election denial efforts — attended the December 2020 Oval Office meeting alongside Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, where Trump was urged to seize voting machines. Byrne claimed that the raid shows “they’ve crossed the Rubicon” and it was “exactly what we were asking him [Trump] to do” in 2020. He also called the raid “very exciting” and claimed “we know what they're going to find.” In January, Byrne also allegedly attended another White House meeting regarding election fraud claims. [The New York Times, 1/31/22; The Guardian, 7/20/24; LindellTV, The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson, 1/29/26; Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 1/30/26, 1/30/26; Bluesky, 2/2/26; Media Matters, 1/16/26]

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said he was “very excited” about the Fulton County raid. The Associated Press has called Lindell “one of the nation’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists.” During his interview, which aired on Lindell’s own online network, a chyron appeared on screen saying “Mike was right!” [The Associated Press, 6/16/25; LindellTV, The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson, 1/29/26]

During an interview on the Family Research Council’s Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, Election Integrity Network’s Cleta Mitchell said, “Hopefully, this FBI action will start to get to the truth.” Mitchell — who The Guardian called “a rising star of Republican election denialism” in 2024 — founded the Election Integrity Network, which is “a group working to get grassroots conservatives to monitor their polls and protect the country from voter fraud.” Mitchell claimed during the interview that the raid occurred because the county “basically conducted a completely fraudulent election.” [The Guardian, 7/2/24; Family Research Council, Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, 1/30/26]

VoterGA’s Garland Favorito on The Propaganda Report: The Fulton County raid was “a great relief” and “the next milestone of a five-year journey.” The Atlanta-Journal Constitution has called Favorito “a leader among conservatives who say the 2020 presidential election in Georgia was rife with fraud.” During Favorito’s appearance on the podcast, a video from his organization, VoterGA, was also shown featuring a voiceover saying, “Thank you DOJ and FBI for seizing Georgia election records so we will have truth. Hopefully, you will return to Georgia and pick up a few more truckloads.” [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1/5/26; YouTube, The Propaganda Report, 1/30/26, 1/30/26]

David Clements: “We’re seeing finally justice and … vindication” with the Fulton County raid. Clements, a podcast host who a Reuters investigation called “an evangelist for false theories about rigged voting machines,” also credited “Georgia freedom fighters” who pushed election fraud claims for the raid, and wrote that it was “just the tip of the iceberg.” [Reuters, 12/21/22; Albuquerque Journal, 10/27/25; Rumble, The State of Freedom, 1/30/26; Telegram, 1/28/26]

On The Mike Lindell Show, David Cross said, “I cannot believe” the Fulton County raid was “happening, and it's like that little frog meme where he’s like, ‘It’s happening, it’s happening.’” During the appearance, Cross — a former vice chair in the Georgia Republican Party who has been “connected to the Election Oversight Group, an organization that has made false claims of election fraud in Georgia and Texas” — added that “hopefully, we’re going to see some good things coming out of this.” [The Guardian, 3/29/24, 5/1/24; LindellTV, The Mike Lindell Show, 1/28/26]

On NTD News, part of the right-wing Epoch Media Group, Seth Keshel said that “every activist I know in Georgia” is “absolutely over the moon that” the Fulton County raid “is happening.” Keshel is a former U.S. Army intelligence captain and blogger who “has become a darling among election deniers by factoring widespread voter fraud — the existence of which has been widely debunked — into his election predictions.” [NBC News, 8/20/19; The New York Times, 10/15/24; NTD News, Capitol Report, 1/29/26; Substack, accessed 2/5/26]

“Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander wrote “AMEN!” in response to the Fulton County raid. Alexander — a major figure in organizing the “Stop the Steal” events which pushed false claims of voter fraud following the 2020 election that eventually led to the January 6 insurrection — wrote that it “would’ve been cooler to raid 12 sites at once all across the country.” Alexander also urged Trump to do something similar in Colorado “until they release Tina Peters,” the former Mesa County elections clerk serving a nine-year sentence “for orchestrating a data breach of the county's elections equipment, driven by false claims about voting machine fraud after Trump lost his reelection bid” in 2020. [Media Matters, 1/9/23; Telegram, 1/28/26; The Associated Press, 1/14/26]

In response to the Fulton County raid, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn wrote, “We have to stop calling it the ‘2020 election fraud.’ It was a stolen election to effect a coup d’etat to deny President Trump the victory and to destroy the United States.” Flynn, who urged Trump to seize voting machines in the December 2020 Oval Office meeting alongside Byrne and Powell, also wrote, “Had Trump not won the 2024 election, many of us would be in deep Kimchee right about now.” [CNN, 7/12/22; Telegram, 1/29/26]

Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell: “It’s about time” the Fulton County raid happened. In a podcast interview, Powell — a onetime attorney for Trump who “helped orchestrate his legal efforts to try to overturn” the 2020 election — also said that the raid “should have been done in 2021 at the latest” and that she was “hopeful that means this administration is taking seriously the massive fraud that I believe occurred in the 2020 election.” She also said it was “interesting that this is not very long after the capture of Mr. Maduro from Venezuela.” Powell’s group, Defending the Republic, also wrote in its Substack newsletter that “we are thrilled” about the raid, as it could mean that “at last, we may get the facts that prove how the UniParty in Georgia conspired in 2020 to rig the election and how they have conspired ever since to hide this information.” [NPR, 10/19/23; The Washington Post, 12/6/21; YouTube, Stephen Gardner Show, 1/29/26; Substack, 1/30/26]

Citizens Defending Freedom’s Holly Kesler: The Fulton County raid “marked a moment that felt like stepping into an alternate reality for those of us who’ve been knee-deep in the trenches of election integrity in Georgia.” Kesler, the Georgia state director for the conservative organization Citizens Defending Freedom, has previously alleged “fraudulent activity” in the county. In a guest post on Keshel’s Substack, Kesler claimed that “despite multiple audits and recounts affirming Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state, questions lingered, fueled by affidavits, video footage, and whistleblower accounts.” [The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10/30/24; Substack, 1/29/26]

Brian Lupo, co-host of a show dedicated to election fraud claims, suggested the Fulton County raid meant “we won a victory this week.” Lupo added, “We have not won the war. We are a long way from winning the war, but it is good to celebrate.” Co-host Ashley Epp also said that “a lot of people … think that the reason we have this information about Fulton County right now is because of Nicolás Maduro,” though she and Lupo downplayed that theory, with Epp saying that it “undercuts the incredibly hard work that the people of Georgia have done on this issue since 2020.” [Media Matters, 6/14/23; Badlands Media, Why We Vote, 1/30/26, 1/30/26]