Just another day in Fulton County, Georgia

A sce­nario.

An FBI agent walks into the foy­er of the Fulton County, Georgia Registration and Election Center.  She is iden­ti­fied by the blue vest she wears, sport­ing “FBI” on the front and back in large gold let­ters. She is accom­pa­nied by two oth­er agents equal­ly iden­ti­fied.  They approach the receptionist’s desk.

“We have a fed­er­al war­rant to secure doc­u­ments relat­ing to the 2020 elec­tion,” she asserts.

The recep­tion­ist, look­ing some­what per­plexed, replies, “I think I should get the super­vi­sor here,” as she lifts the phone, dials an exten­sion num­ber, and speaks quick­ly to the per­son at the oth­er end of the line.

In less than a minute, a matron­ly lady emerges into the foy­er from closed doors beyond and intro­duces her­self as the center’s super­vi­sor. The FBI agent intro­duces her­self and her fel­low agents and extends the war­rant to the super­vi­sor, who takes it, albeit some­what reluctantly.

Quickly perus­ing the doc­u­ment, the super­vi­sor says, “This looks quite cor­rect, but I shall have to have our legal coun­sel review it.  Fortunately, he is in today.  If you’d care to take a seat, I’ll take this to him and return short­ly.”  She departs through the doors through which she pre­vi­ous­ly came, in quick­step.  The three agents take seats near­by, appear­ing some­what peev­ed at the delay.  The recep­tion­ist assumes her place behind the counter, keep­ing her eye on the agents, who seem to be con­stant­ly glanc­ing around the area, per­haps won­der­ing why this doesn’t seem to be going accord­ing to script.

It was 18 min­utes lat­er when the super­vi­sor re-emerged to the foy­er, pre­ced­ed by a gen­tle­man infor­mal­ly dressed: no tie, no jack­et, light blue shirt with col­lar unbut­toned, dark gray slacks.

“Well,” begins the gen­tle­man, “this seems to be in order.  It states that you are to secure all the doc­u­ments we have relat­ing to the 2020 election.”

“Correct,” replied the agent.

“Our keep­er of the records has informed me that there are 123 box­es,” states the coun­sel.  “Are you pre­pared to take our word for the num­ber or do you wish to exam­ine the sev­er­al thou­sand oth­er box­es we have in stor­age to verify?”

(As of February 4, that num­ber has jumped to 700 box­es, accord­ing to media reports.)

“Your word will be suf­fi­cient.  May I bring in the oth­er agents to begin col­lect­ing the materials?”

“Of course,” the coun­sel respond­ed crisply.  “The super­vi­sor will escort them to the stor­age area.”

The lead agent keys her walkie-talkie, inform­ing the oth­er agents wait­ing out­side to come in.  Once inside, she informs them that the super­vi­sor will lead them to the stor­age area and point out the box­es con­tain­ing the mate­r­i­al under warrant.

As the agents fol­low the super­vi­sor into the inte­ri­or of the build­ing, the coun­sel turns to the lead agent and says, “As you peo­ple bring the box­es out, would you have them stack them here in the foy­er before tak­ing them to your vehicles?”

“Excuse me?” replies the agent.

“Well,” begins the coun­sel, “we will have to exam­ine the con­tents of each box, make a note of each piece of mate­r­i­al in each box and have you sign off on each piece as we log it.”

“I beg your par­don,” begins the agent.  “That’s sev­er­al hun­dred thou­sand doc­u­ments.  You want me to sign off on each one?”

“Of course,” says the coun­sel.  “We can’t very well just release all those doc­u­ments, not know­ing where they are going, who will have ulti­mate con­trol over them or how long they may be gone.  Who’s to say that a doc­u­ment might not ‘mys­te­ri­ous­ly’ dis­ap­pear?  We’d have no way of know­ing with­out an account­ing of the doc­u­ments which will be in your possession.”

“Now look here,” began the exas­per­at­ed agent, “we don’t have the time to go through all that.  The war­rant clear­ly gives us autho­riza­tion to take the documents.”

“True,” responds the coun­sel, calm­ly.  “But the war­rant does not keep us from ver­i­fy­ing the con­tents of the box­es you will be tak­ing, nor does it relieve you of the respon­si­bil­i­ty of con­firm­ing the con­tents of each.”

“We could be here for days,” was the frus­trat­ed reply.

“My staff is here every day.  They will, I’m sure, be hap­py to assist you.”

“I’ve got­ta talk to the AG about this,” said the agent as she extract­ed her cell phone from beneath the blue vest, fes­tooned with “FBI.”

After a short inter­val dur­ing which, appar­ent­ly, the agent was passed up the line to the office of the Attorney General, she began the con­ver­sa­tion, explain­ing what is being asked of her.  From time to time she turns her back to the coun­sel and low­ers her voice, inef­fec­tive­ly con­ceal­ing her frustration.

Within a few min­utes of fren­zied dis­cus­sion she replaces the phone to its pre­vi­ous place some­where under the vest and turns to the coun­sel just as the first of the agents emerges into the foy­er car­ry­ing two of the offered boxes.

“Put ‘em back,” the lead agent calls out to the one tot­ing the boxes.

“What?”

“Put ‘em back.  AG Bondi says “screw it.”  We ain’t got time to waste sign­ing off on hun­dreds of thou­sands of doc­u­ments.  Get the rest of the crew out.  We’re head­ing back to headquarters.”

As the oth­er agents enter into the foy­er — emp­ty hand­ed — and file toward the entry doors, the lead agent watch­es their depar­ture and turns toward the counsel.

“We’ll be back,” she says, turns briskly and exits, fol­low­ing the last of the depart­ing agents.

“Do come again,” the coun­sel calls after her.  “Any time.  “And say hel­lo to Pam for me.”