Georgia's Fulton County filed a challenge on Feb. 4 to the legality of a warrant and seizure of election records in an FBI search of an election facility last week, seeking the return of all confiscated files and the unsealing of a related affidavit. The FBI searched the election office outside Atlanta as it pursues U.S. President Donald Trump's false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voting fraud. The raid was the latest in a string of actions by Trump's administration to use the Justice Department against his perceived enemies or to intervene in cases in which he believes he was treated unfairly. The county asked a federal court to limit the warrant to provide an opportunity for a forensic accounting of all the documents and to request they stay in Georgia, Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. told Reuters in an interview, adding that ideally he would like all records returned. "Frankly, though, it's really too late," Arrington said. "Even if they give us the records back, we still don't know if they lost records or deleted records because there was no inventory, there was no orderly transition of these files." FBI agents searched the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City, a large, warehouse-like facility opened in 2023. "This morning, February 4, 2026, Fulton County has filed a motion in federal court, in the Northern District of Georgia, seeking the return of all files from the 2020 Election that were confiscated by the FBI on Wednesday, January 28," a county spokesperson said in a statement. "The motion also seeks the unsealing of the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant," the spokesperson added. According to a copy of the search warrant seen by Reuters, the FBI was directed to seize all physical ballots from the 2020 general election in Fulton County as well as tabulator tapes for every voting machine used and voter rolls from absentee, early voting, in-person and other voters. Joe Biden, a Democrat, won Georgia and defeated Trump, a Republican who was seeking reelection in 2020. Trump returned to the presidency for a second term last year after winning the 2024 election. The seizure of the records comes ahead of November's midterm elections, with Republicans seeking to retain their control of both chambers of Congress.

A federal judge on Feb. 2 blocked a renewed attempt by President Donald Trump's administration to bar members of Congress from making unannounced visits to immigrant detention facilities. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could not revive the policy, which the judge had blocked in December, by claiming it is using a different source of funding to implement it. The ruling came in a lawsuit by 13 Democratic members of Congress. Trump, a Republican, has made a crackdown on legal and illegal immigration a centerpiece of his second term. That has included a mass deportation campaign and the detention of thousands of people awaiting legal proceedings. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a January 8 memo mandated that members of Congress request access to detention centers at least seven days in advance, citing "significant and sometimes violent incidents." Cobb last month had blocked an identical policy adopted in June from being implemented using resources funded by the department's general annual budget, such as for staff and equipment. She said that under federal law, members of Congress have broad authority to conduct oversight at detention centers. Noem in the memo said the agency would instead use part of the $29 billion earmarked for immigration enforcement efforts in Trump's 2025 tax cut and spending legislation. Cobb in December said that funding was not subject to the same legal limitations as money that comes from the general budget. But on Monday, the judge said the Trump administration had not shown that the policy could be implemented and enforced using only the earmarked funds. "At least some of these resources that either have been or will be used to promulgate and enforce the notice policy have already been funded and paid for with restricted annual appropriations funds," Cobb wrote. Cobb, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, blocked the policy pending further litigation. The Democrats who filed the lawsuit are represented by Democracy Forward, which is involved in dozens of legal challenges to Trump administration policies. Skye Perryman, the group's president and CEO, in a statement said Cobb's ruling restores the ability of Congress to expose dangerous conditions at detention centers. The lawmakers come from California, Colorado, Maryland, Mississippi, New York and Texas.

A federal appeals court judge has dismissed a judicial misconduct complaint by U.S. Justice Department against a judge who clashed with President Donald Trump's administration over its move to deport several Venezuelans to El Salvador. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi took the rare step in July of announcing the complaint against Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., alleging he made improper comments about Trump during a meeting of the judiciary's policymaking body, the Judicial Conference. Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in a newly-released order dated December 19 said the alleged statements, even if true, would not violate judicial ethics rules. The Justice Department did not respond on Saturday to requests for comment. Boasberg, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, declined to comment. Bondi announced the complaint days after Boasberg said he might initiate disciplinary proceedings against Justice Department lawyers for their conduct in a lawsuit brought by Venezuelans challenging their removal to a Salvadoran prison. Boasberg in April concluded the administration appeared to have acted "in bad faith" when it hurriedly assembled three deportation flights on March 15, at the same time that he was conducting emergency court proceedings to assess the effort's legality. The DOJ's complaint focused on comments attributed to Boasberg by the conservative media outlet The Federalist during a meeting of U.S. Judicial Conference in March that was attended by Chief U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. The Justice Department alleged Boasberg expressed his concern to Roberts and others that the administration would disregard court rulings and trigger "a constitutional crisis." The DOJ argued those comments ran afoul of the judicial code of conduct, and that Boasberg wrongly acted on his belief in the litigation over the Venezuelans, who were removed from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act. Due to potential conflicts among judges in D.C., Roberts transferred the complaint to the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit's Judicial Council. Sutton said the DOJ lacked proof Boasberg made such statements, which even if uttered would not be improper during the judicial policymaking body's closed-door meeting. "In these settings, a judge’s expression of anxiety about executive-branch compliance with judicial orders, whether rightly feared or not, is not so far afield from customary topics at these meetings—judicial independence, judicial security, and inter-branch relations—as to violate the Codes of Judicial Conduct," Sutton wrote.