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(FULTON COUNTY, Ga.) — Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, are renewing their effort to have the 2020 election files seized from their election office last month returned, arguing that a recently unsealed search warrant application falls “woefully short” of establishing probable cause of a crime. 

In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for Fulton County argued that the FBI agent behind the search warrant application “intentionally or recklessly omitted material facts” about purported discrepancies in the 2020 election in Georgia, after the Justice Department last week released the sworn affidavit that was the basis for the search warrant.

“Despite years of investigations of the 2020 election, the Affidavit does not identify facts that establish probable cause that anyone committed a crime,” Tuesday’s filing from Fulton County said. 

FBI agents on Jan. 28 seized 700 boxes containing ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election from Fulton County’s Elections Hub and Operations Center after obtaining a search warrant. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, despite Georgia officials auditing and certifying the results and courts rejecting numerous lawsuits challenging the election’s outcome.

FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans said in the sworn affidavit that following the 2020 election “there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia” and that “Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County.”

Fulton County filed a motion earlier this month seeking the return of the records, and revised its request in light of the recently unsealed affidavit. They argue that the FBI’s investigation focuses on “human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election … without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever.”

“The Affidavit omits numerous material facts — including from the very reports and publicly-disclosed investigations that the Affiant cites — that confirm the alleged conduct was previously investigated and found to be unintentional,” the filing said. 

Attorneys also argued that the FBI’s witnesses are unreliable and that the FBI failed to disclose information that would discredit its own witnesses. 

“The Affiant failed to include facts — including from the very sources he cited — that shut the door on even the faintest possibility of probable cause,” the filing said. 

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(FULTON COUNTY, Ga.) — Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, are renewing their effort to have the 2020 election files seized from their election office last month returned, arguing that a recently unsealed search warrant application falls “woefully short” of establishing probable cause of a crime. 

In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for Fulton County argued that the FBI agent behind the search warrant application “intentionally or recklessly omitted material facts” about purported discrepancies in the 2020 election in Georgia, after the Justice Department last week released the sworn affidavit that was the basis for the search warrant.

“Despite years of investigations of the 2020 election, the Affidavit does not identify facts that establish probable cause that anyone committed a crime,” Tuesday’s filing from Fulton County said. 

FBI agents on Jan. 28 seized 700 boxes containing ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election from Fulton County’s Elections Hub and Operations Center after obtaining a search warrant. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, despite Georgia officials auditing and certifying the results and courts rejecting numerous lawsuits challenging the election’s outcome.

FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans said in the sworn affidavit that following the 2020 election “there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia” and that “Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County.”

Fulton County filed a motion earlier this month seeking the return of the records, and revised its request in light of the recently unsealed affidavit. They argue that the FBI’s investigation focuses on “human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election … without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever.”

“The Affidavit omits numerous material facts — including from the very reports and publicly-disclosed investigations that the Affiant cites — that confirm the alleged conduct was previously investigated and found to be unintentional,” the filing said. 

Attorneys also argued that the FBI’s witnesses are unreliable and that the FBI failed to disclose information that would discredit its own witnesses. 

“The Affiant failed to include facts — including from the very sources he cited — that shut the door on even the faintest possibility of probable cause,” the filing said. 

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — While surveying ice during a training exercise on the Hudson River on Tuesday, a New York City police officer with the department’s Harbor Unit spotted something unusual.

“Last week, when it was cold, a lot of stuff was getting stuck in the ice, whether it was a float, a buoy, but it looked different,” Officer Michael Russo told reporters on Wednesday. “I could see this white head from a distance. So I said, let’s get a little closer. I said, it looks like an eagle. And turns out it was an American bald eagle.”

Russo, a 16-year veteran of the NYPD’s Harbor Unit, said officers have rescued distressed boaters, sick cruise ship passengers and animals such as dogs while patrolling the city’s waterways. Though a bald eagle was a first.

The injured bird was screeching, wet and bloody, and as the boat approached, it didn’t leave the ice it was floating on, officers said.

Officers said they consulted with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to see if they should retrieve the bird, and once given the go-ahead, looked up how to safely do that.

“As we got closer, we put a plan together,” Russo said. “We used a catch noose to kind of subdue its wings from flapping and its claws.” 

Another officer, Sgt. Michael Amello, then put a cloth over the bird’s head, to help keep it calm, and got it on board the boat.

“Once we did that, it really didn’t give us a hard time,” Russo said. “I think it kind of knew that we were trying to help it.”

The officers were worried about the bird’s large talons throughout the rescue.

“They don’t really train you for, you know, handling a bald eagle, but we made it work,” Amello told reporters. “It was impressive and kind of scary at the same time, being that close to a bald eagle. The talons were pretty long. But it came on, didn’t put up much of a fight. It was compliant.”

The officers kept the bird on board until they were able to meet with personnel from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. 

“It’s an impressive creature. Even in its state, we were kind of taken back by how big it is and just the way it is, and the beauty of it,” Det. Nicholas Martin with the NYPD Harbor Unit told reporters. “It was impressive, to say the least.”

The bald eagle has since been brought to a sanctuary in New Jersey and was reported to be in stable condition, officers said.

The Raptor Trust, a wild bird rehabilitation center in Millington, New Jersey, said Wednesday that the bird is in their care and is “currently in very serious condition.”

“We are doing our best to keep the bird stable, and should it improve, we will do further diagnostics, x-rays and blood work to help determine a course of action going forward,” the center said in a statement.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — While surveying ice during a training exercise on the Hudson River on Tuesday, a New York City police officer with the department’s Harbor Unit spotted something unusual.

“Last week, when it was cold, a lot of stuff was getting stuck in the ice, whether it was a float, a buoy, but it looked different,” Officer Michael Russo told reporters on Wednesday. “I could see this white head from a distance. So I said, let’s get a little closer. I said, it looks like an eagle. And turns out it was an American bald eagle.”

Russo, a 16-year veteran of the NYPD’s Harbor Unit, said officers have rescued distressed boaters, sick cruise ship passengers and animals such as dogs while patrolling the city’s waterways. Though a bald eagle was a first.

The injured bird was screeching, wet and bloody, and as the boat approached, it didn’t leave the ice it was floating on, officers said.

Officers said they consulted with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to see if they should retrieve the bird, and once given the go-ahead, looked up how to safely do that.

“As we got closer, we put a plan together,” Russo said. “We used a catch noose to kind of subdue its wings from flapping and its claws.” 

Another officer, Sgt. Michael Amello, then put a cloth over the bird’s head, to help keep it calm, and got it on board the boat.

“Once we did that, it really didn’t give us a hard time,” Russo said. “I think it kind of knew that we were trying to help it.”

The officers were worried about the bird’s large talons throughout the rescue.

“They don’t really train you for, you know, handling a bald eagle, but we made it work,” Amello told reporters. “It was impressive and kind of scary at the same time, being that close to a bald eagle. The talons were pretty long. But it came on, didn’t put up much of a fight. It was compliant.”

The officers kept the bird on board until they were able to meet with personnel from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. 

“It’s an impressive creature. Even in its state, we were kind of taken back by how big it is and just the way it is, and the beauty of it,” Det. Nicholas Martin with the NYPD Harbor Unit told reporters. “It was impressive, to say the least.”

The bald eagle has since been brought to a sanctuary in New Jersey and was reported to be in stable condition, officers said.

The Raptor Trust, a wild bird rehabilitation center in Millington, New Jersey, said Wednesday that the bird is in their care and is “currently in very serious condition.”

“We are doing our best to keep the bird stable, and should it improve, we will do further diagnostics, x-rays and blood work to help determine a course of action going forward,” the center said in a statement.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEVADA COUNTY, Calif.) — Eight backcountry skiers have been found dead, and one remains missing following an avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, officials announced Wednesday.

Search crews on Tuesday braved “highly dangerous” conditions to rescue six other skiers who were part of the same guided group, authorities said.

Crews were working on Wednesday to bring the remains of the eight dead skiers off the mountain to be reunited with their families after autopsies are performed to determine the cause of death, authorities said.

Perilous conditions near Donner Pass, where the avalanche occurred, continued on Wednesday morning. Rescuers faced a winter storm dumping more than 2 inches of snow an hour in the area, grounding rescue helicopters and hampering ground crews trying to reach the missing skiers, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center.

Tuesday’s avalanche was reported around 11:30 a.m. PT in the Castle Peak area at an elevation of 8,200 feet in the Sierra Nevada northwest of Lake Tahoe, according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.

A group of 15 skiers, including four guides from the company Blackbird Mountain Guides, encountered the avalanche, according to the sheriff’s office.

“The group was in the process of returning to the trailhead at the conclusion of a three-day trip when the incident occurred,” Blackbird Mountain Guides said in a statement.

Preliminarily, the slide measured a D2.5 on the Destructive Force Scale, the avalanche version of the Enhanced Fujita Scale for rating tornadoes, meaning it was strong enough to injure, bury, or kill a person, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center. A D3 on the scale is strong enough to destroy a house.

Six people were successfully rescued Tuesday evening by search-and-rescue teams with varying injuries, authorities said. The survivors had been taking cover under a tarp when they were found alive, a source who communicated with the group told ABC News.

The survivors made a 911 call using an iPhone satellite SOS message, the sheriff’s officer said. Emergency beacons also helped rescuers find the stranded skiers, the sheriff’s office said.

“Due to extreme weather conditions, it took several hours for rescue personnel to safely reach the skiers and transport them to safety where they were medically evaluated by Truckee Fire,” the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “Two of the six skiers have been transported to a hospital for treatment.”

Authorities initially said 16 skiers were in the group, and 10 were missing.

Rescuers faced very difficult conditions, including avalanche danger themselves, according to Brandon Schwartz, director of the Sierra Avalanche Center, which forecasts avalanche conditions in the area around Lake Tahoe. The area saw 2 to 3 feet of new snow in the last 36 hours and more was still falling at 2 to 4 inches per hour, Schwartz told ABC News.

The Blackbird Mountain Guides said the avalanche happened near the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts in the Castle Peak area, northwest of Truckee.

The group of skiers had been staying at the huts — which the company describes in online advertisements as “luxury-dormitories” — since Sunday. A 3-to-4-day stay at the huts normally costs $1,795, according to the company’s website.

The company lists prerequisites for customers, including requiring skiers to be “adept with their backcountry touring skills and have a solid foundation of touring before the trip.” Customers are also required to be in good physical shape, according to the company, “able to hike 4-6 miles and climb 1,500-2,500 vertical feet throughout the course of a day.”

The Sierra Avalanche Center said there was “high” avalanche danger in the backcountry on Tuesday, raising questions of why the group was in the rugged area.

On Monday, Blackbird Mountain Guides posted a video on Instagram showing what it described as “atypical layering from our normal mid season snowpack.”

“The result is a particularly weak layer in many northerly aspects, across various elevation bands,” a company employee said in the video. “As we move into a large storm cycle this week, pay close attention to places where faceting has been particularly strong — avalanches could behave abnormally and hazards could last longer than normal.”

The Sierra Avalanche Center said rapidly accumulating snowfall, weak layers of existing snowpack and gale-force winds that blow and drift snow “have created dangerous avalanche conditions in the mountains.”

“Natural avalanches are likely, and human-triggered avalanches large enough to bury or injure people are very likely,” the center said.

The center has issued an avalanche warning for the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains between Yuba Pass on the north and Ebbetts Pass on the south, including the greater Lake Tahoe area, through Wednesday morning.

In an updated statement on Wednesday morning, the center said, “HIGH avalanche danger continues,” and added, “travel in, near, or below avalanche terrain not recommended.”

“Increased uncertainty exists with ongoing reactivity of these buried weak layers under this large storm snow load.  The potential continues for large to very large avalanches occurring in the backcountry today.”

Whiteout conditions have been reported in the region where the avalanche occurred.

The California Highway Patrol’s Truckee office warned that high winds are “creating full whiteout conditions” across the Donner Summit.

Interstate 80 over Donner Summit was closed in both directions on Tuesday and remained closed on Wednesday morning due to whiteout conditions and poor visibility.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEVADA COUNTY, Calif.) — Eight backcountry skiers have been found dead, and one remains missing following an avalanche in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, officials announced Wednesday.

Search crews on Tuesday braved “highly dangerous” conditions to rescue six other skiers who were part of the same guided group, authorities said.

Crews were working on Wednesday to bring the remains of the eight dead skiers off the mountain to be reunited with their families after autopsies are performed to determine the cause of death, authorities said.

Perilous conditions near Donner Pass, where the avalanche occurred, continued on Wednesday morning. Rescuers faced a winter storm dumping more than 2 inches of snow an hour in the area, grounding rescue helicopters and hampering ground crews trying to reach the missing skiers, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center.

Tuesday’s avalanche was reported around 11:30 a.m. PT in the Castle Peak area at an elevation of 8,200 feet in the Sierra Nevada northwest of Lake Tahoe, according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.

A group of 15 skiers, including four guides from the company Blackbird Mountain Guides, encountered the avalanche, according to the sheriff’s office.

“The group was in the process of returning to the trailhead at the conclusion of a three-day trip when the incident occurred,” Blackbird Mountain Guides said in a statement.

Preliminarily, the slide measured a D2.5 on the Destructive Force Scale, the avalanche version of the Enhanced Fujita Scale for rating tornadoes, meaning it was strong enough to injure, bury, or kill a person, according to the Sierra Avalanche Center. A D3 on the scale is strong enough to destroy a house.

Six people were successfully rescued Tuesday evening by search-and-rescue teams with varying injuries, authorities said. The survivors had been taking cover under a tarp when they were found alive, a source who communicated with the group told ABC News.

The survivors made a 911 call using an iPhone satellite SOS message, the sheriff’s officer said. Emergency beacons also helped rescuers find the stranded skiers, the sheriff’s office said.

“Due to extreme weather conditions, it took several hours for rescue personnel to safely reach the skiers and transport them to safety where they were medically evaluated by Truckee Fire,” the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “Two of the six skiers have been transported to a hospital for treatment.”

Authorities initially said 16 skiers were in the group, and 10 were missing.

Rescuers faced very difficult conditions, including avalanche danger themselves, according to Brandon Schwartz, director of the Sierra Avalanche Center, which forecasts avalanche conditions in the area around Lake Tahoe. The area saw 2 to 3 feet of new snow in the last 36 hours and more was still falling at 2 to 4 inches per hour, Schwartz told ABC News.

The Blackbird Mountain Guides said the avalanche happened near the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts in the Castle Peak area, northwest of Truckee.

The group of skiers had been staying at the huts — which the company describes in online advertisements as “luxury-dormitories” — since Sunday. A 3-to-4-day stay at the huts normally costs $1,795, according to the company’s website.

The company lists prerequisites for customers, including requiring skiers to be “adept with their backcountry touring skills and have a solid foundation of touring before the trip.” Customers are also required to be in good physical shape, according to the company, “able to hike 4-6 miles and climb 1,500-2,500 vertical feet throughout the course of a day.”

The Sierra Avalanche Center said there was “high” avalanche danger in the backcountry on Tuesday, raising questions of why the group was in the rugged area.

On Monday, Blackbird Mountain Guides posted a video on Instagram showing what it described as “atypical layering from our normal mid season snowpack.”

“The result is a particularly weak layer in many northerly aspects, across various elevation bands,” a company employee said in the video. “As we move into a large storm cycle this week, pay close attention to places where faceting has been particularly strong — avalanches could behave abnormally and hazards could last longer than normal.”

The Sierra Avalanche Center said rapidly accumulating snowfall, weak layers of existing snowpack and gale-force winds that blow and drift snow “have created dangerous avalanche conditions in the mountains.”

“Natural avalanches are likely, and human-triggered avalanches large enough to bury or injure people are very likely,” the center said.

The center has issued an avalanche warning for the Central Sierra Nevada Mountains between Yuba Pass on the north and Ebbetts Pass on the south, including the greater Lake Tahoe area, through Wednesday morning.

In an updated statement on Wednesday morning, the center said, “HIGH avalanche danger continues,” and added, “travel in, near, or below avalanche terrain not recommended.”

“Increased uncertainty exists with ongoing reactivity of these buried weak layers under this large storm snow load.  The potential continues for large to very large avalanches occurring in the backcountry today.”

Whiteout conditions have been reported in the region where the avalanche occurred.

The California Highway Patrol’s Truckee office warned that high winds are “creating full whiteout conditions” across the Donner Summit.

Interstate 80 over Donner Summit was closed in both directions on Tuesday and remained closed on Wednesday morning due to whiteout conditions and poor visibility.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.