Doom wins in fed court: Judge orders DOJ to reveal witnesses in FBI election raid
A federal judge sides with American Doom, ordering the DOJ to release the names of public officials who provided unfounded allegations of election fraud to the FBI.
Big news out of federal court in Atlanta this week. American Doom was the only publication in the country that pushed the DOJ to release the names of the public officials who refused to have their identities unsealed in an affidavit that led to a historic FBI raid election raid in January. To support our work, please choose a paid subscription or throw us a few dollars at our Coffee Fund.
A federal judge in Georgia has sided with American Doom and ordered the Justice Department to officially reveal the identities of three witnesses whose allegations led to the FBI raid of a Fulton County elections warehouse in January.
I say “officially,” because the identities of the witnesses were more or less known immediately thanks to information provided in the affidavit about their positions as public officials — two are appointed members of the State Election Board (SEB) and the third is an elected member of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
But the officials — Dr. Janice Johnston and Janelle King of the SEB and Fulton County Commissioner Bridget Thorne — objected to American Doom’s motions to have their names un-redacted from the affidavit. Johnston, King and Thorne did not respond to a request for comment.
What’s never been clear is why the three officials objected to the public release of their names. All three are clearly identified in the affidavit by their positions on the SEB and Fulton County commission, and all three are outspoken election skeptics who, for years, have amplified falsehoods and questionable claims about widespread voter fraud.
For her part, Johnston was so enamored with the FBI raid in January that she made an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast from her SUV in the parking lot where, nearby, FBI agents were still pulling materials from the elections warehouse. Since at least late last year, King has publicly bragged about her solicitation of help from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to investigate specious claims of election fraud in Fulton County during the 2020 election, as I reported for the Guardian in November. Thorne has openly discussed her inclusion in the affidavit with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee ordered the Justice Department to provide an un-redacted version of the FBI affidavit that led to the January raid. That document will now officially name Johnston, King and Thorne as witnesses.
Boulee explained his order:
“In balancing the right of access versus Respondent’s interest in keeping the names of the witnesses confidential, the Court notes that many of the above factors weigh in favor of the right of access. For instance, it does not appear that Glawe is seeking the records for an illegitimate purpose or to promote public scandal. Moreover, it is undeniable that the 2020 election and the seizure of the election records are historically significant matters and that granting full access to the affidavits is likely to promote public understanding of these events,” Boulee wrote in his order. “The Court also cannot ignore that the redacted information concerns both public officials and a matter of public concern. Indeed, each of the witnesses currently holds a public office related to elections in Georgia and the underlying search at issue in this case involves a Georgia election.”
The Justice Department had argued that the identifies of Johnston, King and Thorne must remain under seal due to “concerns over privacy, retaliation, and/or harassment associated with official confirmation of their providing evidence in a criminal investigation.” Boulee noted that the identities of the three are already widely known, and that “maintaining the seal in this case does little to protect the privacy of these witnesses.”
Keep in mind that the information provided by Johnston, King and Thorne was already widely known as well. Their claims of “election fraud” are based on technical errors that occurred during the 2020 election — errors that have been the subject of much scrutiny and hand-wringing by the election denial movement in the ensuing six years.
The case against Fulton County is largely viewed as specious by election experts, former judges and reputable lawyers, but that hasn’t stopped the Justice Department from pursuing criminal charges against the county for the technical errors that occurred in 2020 — and had no effect on the outcome of the election. Trump lost; Biden won. It’s as simple as that. But with the Justice Department acting as Trump’s personal law firm, election denialists within the agency have been aggressively pursuing debunked claims of widespread election fraud for two reasons: to curry favor with Trump, who simply cannot accept that he lost the 2020 election, and to lay the groundwork for forthcoming claims that the November mid-terms were beset with widespread fraud.
Trump and Republicans need to create this narrative going into November because they’re likely to lose in significant fashion. The FBI raid in Atlanta, the subpoenaing of election records in Arizona and the personal information of election workers in Fulton County, the seizure of voting machines in Puerto Rico, and a recent demand that the Supreme Court allow Republicans to purge voters in Arizona under dubious claims that many undocumented immigrants are registered to vote — all of it is part of the narrative-building that Republicans and the Trump administration are performing in order to claim that an election they are set to lose was somehow stolen from them.
Millions of Americans are being primed to believe this, and they’re being led by people like Johnston, King and Thorne, who now must officially take credit for their role in the affidavit — and their positions as leaders of a movement in Georgia aimed at convincing voters of fraud that simply doesn’t exist.
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