Georgia Election Officials FIGHT BACK Against DOJ's Abusive Subpoenas!

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]So friends, here's a little bit of good news on the legal front. Georgia state election officials are fighting back against DOJ's most recent abuse of grand jury subpoenas because justice matters.

[00:00:35]All right, welcome friends. I am thrilled today because we have our friend Adam Classfeld back with us.

[00:00:42]Adam, of course, of all rise news, the best gabbletogl coverage of all of the most consequential legal cases of the day. and uh Adam has his work cut out for him with everything the Trump administration and the Department of Justice is trying to pull. So, first of all, Adam, thank you for jumping on with us this morning. And we've got some some great legal updates to talk about.

[00:01:09]>> Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure talking, Glenn.

[00:01:12]>> Even even if what we talk about isn't always a pleasure. Yes, someday we'll get to talk about lighter subjects, but for now, um, let's turn our attention down to Falton County, Georgia, and a brand new development in a a case that started with the kind of inexplicable seizure of Fulton County ballots from the 2020 election. Now, there is some kind of history behind that. Um, it looks like a federal magistrate judge was perhaps snookered into issuing a a search and seizure warrant authorizing the Department of Justice to to seize the ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County. And as that litigation was ongoing, we just learned yesterday that the Fulton County election officials filed what's called a motion to quash. That is a fancy term for trying to invalidate, have a judge invalidate a grand jury subpoena, federal grand jury subpoena that was issued in connection with this election probe. So, can you kind of bring us up to speed beyond those bare bones of what's going on here?

[00:02:28]>> Absolutely, Glenn. Now, what made the subpoenas at issue here so uh so sweeping? They the government after seizing every single 2020 election ballot in Fulton County has demanded the IDs and private information of every single election worker and volunteer who participated in the 2020 presidential election. That could be thousands of people. So, a couple of quick notes right off the bat. It shows just what a fishing expedition this is. They are not it it they are purportedly trying to investigate a crime but there's no targeting here. It's not we believe this person did this thing. And of course they don't have that sort of information or more than 6 years after this. This is an election that has faced recounts, audits, uh litigation uncovering nothing. So what do we have here? a sweeping subpoena seeking private information on the thousands of people who helped democracy function in Fulton County and Fulton County being the place of course that was subject to one of Trump's most brutal uh schemes of election subversion. This is where Shane Moss and Ruby Freeman were defamed. This is where Secretary of State Brad Raffensburgger was threatened by Trump to find 11,780 votes or who knows we may find you might be in trouble. There could be criminal liability. So this is being interpreted in the motion to quash quite reasonably as an attempt to intimidate to intimidate the very people who make democracy function. And we have seen that actually play out in real time after the 2020 election. Uh there was a jaw-dropping survey by the Brennan Center that they were polling election workers and they found that nearly half some 45% of all respondents believed that they feared for the safety of people who signed up as pole workers who signed up as volunteers. And now these people are worried for their safety. And so this is why you have Fulton County trying to quash the subpoena. This comes in the context separately of litigation of Fulton County officials trying to persuade a judge to order the return of the seized ballots. Uh, as you noted, Glenn, when the uh, application underlying the search warrant, the the affidavit came to light, we found out that this came on the referral of one of Trump's election denier lawyers, Kurt Olsen, who was sanctioned multiple times for his election denialism and giving false statements to the court. One of those sanctions came from federal court.

[00:05:34]The other one came from the Arizona Supreme Court. Well, in that litigation, we found out even more of the backstory that that referral happened at Janu on January 5th, just weeks before the raid, and that in the words of Fulton County, he snapped and he snapped his fingers and the FBI went right into action uh on behalf of Trump's conspiracy theories.

[00:06:00]And that's where we are, >> you know, and we see what the Trump administration and his dirty DOJ officials are trying to do. It seems out in the open. It seems notorious. It seems obvious and transparent. You know, they want to chill um election workers in Georgia, poll workers, volunteer poll workers. They want to chill, harass, and intimidate voters in Georgia. And as this motion to quash sets out, Donald Trump wants his perceived enemies to be punished. And Donald Trump has forever been lying to the American people about the election in Georgia being rigged and stolen from him. What I want to do is just quote two very short passages from this motion to quash. I'll tell everybody it was filed by the Fulton County Board of Registration and um and Elections uh the FBR.

[00:06:57]And I'll tell you, they pull no punches.

[00:07:00]Here is how they open the motion to quash. This is a motion to quash a grand jury subpoena arising out of the US Department of Justice's latest effort to target and harass the president's perceived political enemies. this time, election officials, poll workers, and volunteers in Fulton County whom Donald Trump continues to disparage as he perpetuates his false claim that they stole the 2020 election. And then if you dig in a little bit, I'm going to jump forward to page 20. They say this, "The grand jury subpoena demands a dossier designed to out several thousands of individuals, including their names, personal email addresses, personal phone numbers, and physical home addresses, all for people who, in the president's telling, stole the 2020 election from him. such compelled disclosure will inevitably chill the associational rights of these individuals. And it goes on and what I shorthanded this as uh when before we went live, Adam, is this is Donald Trump's Department of Justice trying to basically Sheamos and Ruby Freeman, thousands and thousands and thousands of election workers in Georgia. And we know what they did to Sheamos and Ruby Freeman. Perhaps most directly and worst of all, Rudy Giuliani, who was Donald Trump's personal lawyer back then, savaging them, defaming them to the tune of ultimately more than $140 million in damages that a jury awarded against Rudy Giuliani and in favor of two Georgia election poll workers, Sheamos and Ruby Freeman. And it's like, here we go again. rip large.

[00:09:02]>> Absolutely. And that's a massive scope.

[00:09:04]We're talking thousands of people. And the reason they got such a massive judgment, we have to remember they were inundated with threats, death threats, a racist bile, uh, goated by Rudy Giuliani. I remember that he had claimed at one point that they were passing on this was a very memorable moment of the January 6 commission uh that that they had been passing along a flash drive and the words that he used like it was a vial of heroin and asked what they were actually passing to each other in that video. A junior mint, a ginger mint, excuse me. And uh so you read from the motion, you're right. It pulls no punches. And to the point we've both been making about this atmosphere of threat and danger of the people who make our democracy function, here's what that motion says here. The subpoena seeks to compel the disclosure of election workers identities and other personal information so long as they work on the 2020 election in Fulton County in a political environment in which election workers fear for their personal safety.

[00:10:14]Uh this is what you know folks who are observing this may be the point that this is the a very key Democratic county in Georgia and this is someone this is some an information request that makes them every single one of them every of the thousands of election workers and volunteers a potential next Shane Moss and Ruby Freeman >> and I'm soad Glad you brought up that incident and um how Rudy Giuliani tried to spin it. How he used racist imagery to try to claim that Sheamos and Ruby Freeman, a mother and daughter, you know, volunteers. I think one one was a volunteer, maybe one was an employee just, you know, trying to honestly administer the, you know, the election in Georgia. And they were both they're African-American women. And Rudy Giuliani said because they were on video, everything was being videoed as the votes were being uh you know collected and tabulated. He's like, "Look at them. Look at them. What do they look like? Looks like they're, you know, essentially drug dealers passing vials of heroin back and forth." And the racism was so obscene. I mean, I I I I was so offended when I saw that. You know, I have always maintained that diversity is America's superpower, and frankly, at this point, it may be the only one we have left. And that Rudy Giuliani would use that kind of language. Would he have used that language if they were two white election workers? I'll bet not. But, you know, listen, he ultimately was on the losing end of a massive defamation suit, and I'm glad he was. Okay, let's go to the legal nuts and bolts before we move on to a second topic and let's talk about the standard that applies to a motion to quash a grand jury subpoena. Now, I was involved in issuing thousands and thousands of grand jury subpoenas on behalf of the grand jury as a career prosecutor. Ordinarily, we have wide birth. We have very broad discretion when it comes to issuing grand jury subpoenas in furtherance of a grand jury investigation. But let me start with the big ugly blue book of United States, you know, uh, crimes, the US criminal code.

[00:12:42]And we're going to go to rule 17. It's very short, but I want people to know what the standard is. And it is, uh, 17 A2, quashing or modifying subpoenas. And it simply reads, "On motion made promptly, the court may quash, which means basically invalidate, throw out, quash or modify the subpoenas if compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive." now complying with this subpoena, basically giving over thousands and thousands and thousands of uh employees and volunteers personal private information is burdensome. It is unduly broad. And importantly, Adam, as you well know, the way the courts over time have interpreted legal challenges to the the lawfulness of grand jury subpoenas is it all boils down to was this for an improper purpose? And what have we seen recently with respect to grand jury subpoenas being quashed for improper purposes? We've had a couple of recent examples of DOJ basically abusing the grand jury power. Do you can you just share a couple of those with us?

[00:13:59]>> Absolutely. Well, the most famous example would be Jerome Powell and you have the Trump DOJ trying to get that off the books. Janine Pierro recently filing a motion uh saying that well we're no longer investigating Jerome Powell and therefore it's move please judge take this embarrassing ruling from the record books. What uh Judge Boseberg found in that case was that the evidence of the improper purpose was everywhere.

[00:14:27]And what did he do? He just quoted Trump going off again and again. And we see a mirror of that in this motion to quash where they lay out in more than 20 pages, I believe a 27page motion, uh, rattles off all the times Trump is trying to rewrite the history of the 2020 election, denigrate uh, the, uh, innocent and and uh, frankly heroic pole workers of Fulton County, and uh, just po pointing out all of those statements.

[00:15:02]I could imagine very easily there being a very similar ruling to the ruling that quashed the subpoena against Jerome Powell. There was another quashing of a subpoena against the New York Attorney General's office when they tried to investigate Leticia James over her successful lawsuits against Donald Trump in the civil fraud case and the NRA in the wasting of donor assets. These were both cases where she won, but you had a Trump illegitimately appointed Trump US attorney, John Sarone, tried to jin up an investigation against her. What ultimately doomed that subpoena was Sarone's illegitimacy in that office. So that is a kind of different kettle of fish. But as you pointed out, Glenn, the quashing of subpoenas, you know, it's such a low bar to get a grand jury subpoena uh to be enforced that it's a unicorn to see one quashed. And we have two unicorns standing so far. We might have a a trio of unicorns by uh the end of the month. Who knows? And I guess the question is, does that constitute a herd of unicorns or or is it a gaggle of unicorns? I'm not I'm not quite sure, but we'll we'll uh we'll figure that out later.

[00:16:25]>> We'll have to reach out to the commentators on that. If if anyone knows, please. We're we're we're all scientists here.

[00:16:33]>> So, let let me just um follow up on something that the point you made about it being a unicorn. I was a federal prosecutor for 30 years and once once I had a motion to quash come in to quash a subpoena we litigated it and it could not have been more I don't want to call it frivolous but it was so weak that the judge after a very brief oral argument without even taking evidence denied the motion to quatch because we knew it was a proper subpoena once in 30 years. I think that qualifies as a unicorn. Let me do this. All I want to do now is list the many many um bases that the Georgia uh Fulton County election officials gave the court as to why this motion should be quashed and then we're going to move on. Um so they said it's a fishing expedition. That's actually a term of art that courts use because grand jury subpoenas can't be a fishing expedition.

[00:17:32]They actually have to have a basis in fact, you know, that will either produce relevant evidence to a crime that's been committed or will lead to relevant evidence. They say one, it's a fishing expedition. Two, it's overly broad.

[00:17:49]Three, it is beyond the statute of limitations. These these incidents happened more than 5 years ago, which means even if there was a crime committed, spoiler alert, there wasn't.

[00:18:02]There's no evidence that one was being committed, but even if one was committed, it's time barred because it's beyond the statute of limitations, which is another reason that undercuts the lawfulness of these subpoenas. They said, I think we're on five, it violates the First Amendment protections that these poll workers have of free speech and right to assemble. Uh, six, it violates the state sovereignty um, rights because it's the states that run elections, not the federal government. Seven, they say it is designed to punish Donald Trump's perceived political enemies, which is just sort of a um, a big ticket improper purpose for a grand jury subpoena to be issued. And as you just shared with our viewers, the Trump administration has prior. They tried to do it to Jerome Powell. They tried to do it to attorney New York Attorney General Leticia James.

[00:18:59]And this may be the third unicorn. I love the way you put that. So, okay, Adam, can you please tell everybody where they can find your work? Uh, All Rise News, your great Gavl the Caval coverage.

[00:19:11]>> Thank you so much, Glenn. Uh, you can find it right here on Substack at Allrise News or visit www.allrise on allnews.com.

[00:19:20]>> As always, thanks for the great coverage. Thanks for jumping on with us.

[00:19:23]And friends, thank you for uh for joining us for this discussion.