The FBI’s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia is a signal of what’s to come | Austin Sarat

The administration's efforts show the lengths to which Trump is willing to go to lay the groundwork for 2026

While the nation's attention was focused on the ICE invasion of Minneapolis, another part of Trump's authoritarian state apparatus was in action more than a thousand miles away. On Wednesday 28 January, the FBI carried out a stunning raid at the central election facility in Fulton county, Georgia.

Its purpose: to seize ballots cast in the 2020 election. Such an action is unprecedented.

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty