A Trump-appointed judge dealt the Justice Department a major setback after finding the scope of its request "staggering" in a court order.
According to a court order filed on Tuesday, federal judge William M. Ray II quashed a DOJ grand jury subpoena that prosecutors had issued in April.
The subpoena sought a "staggering" amount of personal information about thousands of election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, who took part in the count and recount of the 2020 vote, Ray wrote. The rejection comes a week after the FBI sent hundreds of analysts to the Atlanta Field Office to review seized election materials.
"These records, even if they lead to the DOJ finding individuals who worked for Fulton County in the 2020 Election who support the theory that the 2020 Election was not fair, would not lead to information that could be used to charge anyone with anything," Ray wrote. "That is because the statute of limitations for any possible crime arising from the 2020 Election has long expired."
Ray described the DOJ as engaged in an "arbitrary fishing expedition" that would lead to "a dead-end prosecution," and decided "the Subpoena is unreasonable and must be quashed." Although a grand jury issued the subpoena, "that does not give the DOJ the right to use the Grand Jury to do whatever the DOJ wants," the judge added.
"Everyone, whether you support the President or you do not, or whether you believe the 2020 Election was fair or believe that it was not, should be concerned about the DOJ's ability to utilize the power of the Grand Jury to appropriate your private information without a legitimate purpose," Ray, a Trump appointee, warned.
"Anyone in power (perhaps the next administration of a different party) could use the Grand Jury process similarly to subpoena personal information of citizens (perhaps that of their political opponents) with no legitimate law enforcement purpose."
