Bondi Hands St. Louis Prosecutor Nationwide Election Fraud Remit

The St. Louis-based US attorney overseeing the FBI search warrant executed on Fulton County’s election office Wednesday received a special appointment by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate election integrity cases nationwide, said two people familiar with the matter.

Thomas Albus, the Trump-appointed chief prosecutor in the Eastern District of Missouri, appeared on the FBI’s court-approved warrant—rather than the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia—that enabled agents to seize records from the Atlanta government building at the center of the president’s discredited 2020 election conspiracy.

Bondi had previously handed Albus, formerly the top assistant to then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, authority to conduct voter fraud probes anywhere in the US under a statutorily-permitted designation, said the individuals, who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak with the press. The 28 U.S. Code § 515 appointment allows Albus to coordinate civil and criminal cases, including grand jury proceedings, in all 94 US attorney districts.

Spokespeople at DOJ headquarters and the St. Louis US attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It’s unclear how many other ongoing investigations Albus is helming under this authority.

Albus’s previously unreported role shows the Justice Department’s coordinated efforts to re-litigate President Donald Trump’s false claims that ballot tampering in Fulton County and elsewhere cost him the 2020 election. DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has sued multiple states to compel them to hand over voter registration rolls.

Multiple outlets reported Wednesday that the FBI searched the Fulton County election office and retrieved ballots from the 2020 election. The New York Times, citing a copy of the search warrant, reported that it involved federal laws barring destruction of election-related records and procuring fraudulent voter registration and votes.

Albus was confirmed as US attorney in December after serving in the role on an interim basis.

He worked at Bryan Cave and then in the office as an assistant US attorney from 2002-2019 before joining the Missouri Attorney General’s office as Schmitt’s first assistant. He was sworn in as a St. Louis County circuit judge in 2020.

Schmitt and other GOP attorneys general backed a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 election results that was tossed by the US Supreme Court.

In a Senate floor speech in December, Schmitt, who has served as a Republican senator from Missouri since 2023, said Albus had appeared in nearly 900 federal criminal prosecutions and civil matters and tried 15 cases to verdict.

“Tom is sharp, serious, and a lifelong proponent of law and order—a career law man,” Schmitt said.