Trump’s Speech Omits Fulton County Amid Election Fraud Claims
ATLANTA — As President Donald Trump addressed the nation on election fraud Thursday, Dana Barrett, a Fulton County commissioner, was poised for significant revelations, particularly about Fulton County, which Trump has frequently cited in relation to his 2020 election defeat.
Barrett, representing the Democratic seat in a county often highlighted by Trump, noted the absence of substantial points in the speech. “There was really nothing that Trump said in that speech that was significant,” Barrett remarked.
Fulton County has been under scrutiny, with an FBI raid on its election warehouse last winter leading to ballot seizures. In July, a government memo revealed plans to deploy 260 analysts and specialists to Fulton for a priority investigation, with a deadline set for July 17 to review 708 records, as reported by the Associated Press.
Given the timing of Trump’s address on July 16, Barrett anticipated significant announcements regarding Fulton. However, the county was not mentioned during the speech.
Accompanying Trump’s address was the declassification of documents related to election meddling investigations. Georgia, previously accused by Trump of widespread voter fraud, appeared only sparingly in the 58 documents available for public download from the White House website, and none provided concrete evidence of fraud.
One document references a 2017 news report about an FBI investigation into a data breach at Kennesaw State University, which managed the state’s voter registration database. Another discusses a 2021 federal lawsuit against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, citing vulnerabilities in QR code barcodes used by Georgia’s voting machines.
Several declassified documents were heavily redacted, including one that links Georgia and other states to China. Although heavily blacked out, it mentions the collection of personal information from voter registration databases, much of which was publicly accessible.
Another document highlights Trump’s notification to leaders in 15 states, including Georgia, that their voter registration rolls had been “compromised” by China. Despite this, a 2020 memo from the National Intelligence Council suggests that U.S. elections are challenging to undermine.
The memo indicates that since voting locations are not internet-connected, election manipulation would require physical interference. Although potentially feasible in sufficient states to affect a presidential election, the authors concluded that “postelection audits and paper trails very likely would uncover such an effort.”
Written during Trump’s first term, the memo also asserts that U.S. vote tabulation systems are difficult to manipulate extensively enough to alter election results.
Another declassified memo contradicts Trump’s assertions of unreliable Georgia elections, despite his criticisms of Raffensperger, who oversaw both Trump’s 2020 loss and 2024 win.
The Department of Homeland Security memo reveals that over a quarter million noncitizens are illegitimately registered in four states. However, as of late June, it commends 10 states, including Georgia, for effectively using agency services to identify noncitizen voters.
