Some FBI agents have privately voiced fear that they could be ordered to seize voting machines or ballots, or to take other steps that disrupt the results of the November 3 midterms, MS NOW reported on Wednesday, October 28, citing seven unnamed people with knowledge of internal discussions in the bureau. The report describes agents' fears, not any order or plan, and the administration pushed back. Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels pointed to her earlier statement that seizing ballots would never be authorized for the department's election monitors and "will not happen." White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told HuffPost, "Democrats are the only ones causing Americans to have 'fears' about election security." The FBI's Rapid Response account mocked the story by recalling one of its reporters' October 14 report, corrected on air, that FBI Director Kash Patel had landed in Russia.
What MS NOW reported
The report, by Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig, says current and former FBI officials worry that the Justice Department could seek warrants "based on thin or specious allegations of voting irregularities," warrants that "could, in theory, allow armed officers to legally swoop in and seize ballots or machines." Experts told the network such seizures could break the chain of custody that guards against tampering. "I'm worried about that situation for sure," a current FBI official said. "We have all the evidence we need to expect at least one U.S. attorney and one FBI agent to be willing to sign on to such actions, such as Georgia and Arizona."
Two former law enforcement officials told MS NOW that advocates for free and fair elections are preparing ways to advise agents who fear they have been assigned "a task that is illegal or unethical." The report does not name the advocates, and this article found no group saying publicly that it is doing this. On October 2, The Atlantic, citing more than 40 mostly unnamed people, reported that rank-and-file agents had been seeking outside legal advice about election directives, according to Raw Story's account of the article; an FBI spokesperson disputed the reporting, and Patel is suing The Atlantic over earlier coverage of him.
Pels's statement, about the department's election monitors, also said: "Those suggesting this might be a possibility are fearmongering, pure and simple." It does not mention court-ordered search warrants, the scenario MS NOW's sources describe.
The precedents the agents cite
Both concern the 2020 election and happened this year. On January 28 the FBI seized 2020 ballots and other records from Fulton County, Georgia's elections hub under a search warrant, in a criminal inquiry the Justice Department says concerns "irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the County." MS NOW says the warrant rested largely on previously debunked fraud claims. In May, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee refused the county's request to get the ballots back. He found the warrant affidavit "defective in some respects" and wrote that "the seizure in this case was certainly not perfect," but ruled that the county had not shown its rights were callously disregarded "either through the lack of probable cause, omissions in the Affidavit or by the manner of the execution of the seizure." In March, Arizona's Republican Senate president, Warren Petersen, said he had answered a grand jury subpoena for records of the Senate's 2020 Maricopa County review: "The FBI has the records." Neither inquiry has produced criminal charges, MS NOW notes.
The dispute over the reporting
Critics point to Dilanian's record. On October 14, citing two unnamed sources, he reported on air that Patel had landed in Russia. The FBI posted video of Patel at Liberty University in Virginia, and about two hours later Dilanian corrected the report: "We've since learned that Patel did not, in fact, land in Russia today and remains in the U.S." He noted that published reports had said a planned Patel meeting in Russia "was supposed to be happening today," and added, "we regret this error." Patel called it "a basic verification failure" and asked: "If a network cannot confirm where I was before putting it on air, how can the public trust its reporting on the work our agents and officers do every day?" On October 28 the FBI's Rapid Response account answered the new story: "We hear from two high level sources that those concerned agents have 'just landed in Russia' – tuning in to MS NOW for more reporting." BizPac Review, a conservative site, cast the new story as the same reporter's latest "bombshell." Both reports rest on unnamed sources. The October 14 claim was a checkable fact that video disproved within hours; the new report describes fears that public evidence has neither confirmed nor ruled out. The FBI did not immediately respond to MS NOW's request for comment, and its post did not address the report's specifics.
What officials have said on the record
Patel's answers at a Senate Judiciary hearing on September 15 pointed both ways. Asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal whether sending agents to polling places would break the law, he said, "I don't know that we can't legally do it," and also: "The FBI will follow the law. If there's a reason to go there because there's a violation of law, we will. Otherwise we won't." He told Sen. Peter Welch that, with election crimes coordinators in every field office, "you bet we're going to have them there and manning the polls for election interference matters." When Sen. Alex Padilla asked whether he would match a commitment by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, of "no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election related material," Patel answered, "Yes," according to Padilla's office.
On October 15, Padilla and fellow Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse asked Attorney General Todd Blanche to "rule out any attempt to seize ballots or any other election materials or equipment before voting, counting, and/or certification are complete." The letter credits Patel with stating under oath that agents won't seize ballots, Democracy Docket reported, but adds that "his commitment is contingent on your own." No reply had been made public by Thursday afternoon. Blanche said last week he had no intention to "improperly interfere with elections," but declined to rule out acting on certification: "Of course, I'm not going to say that. But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not."
Federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 592, makes it a crime for anyone "in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States" to bring "troops or armed men" to a place where an election is held unless needed "to repel armed enemies of the United States." It does not mention search warrants. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
This article reflects reporting through the afternoon of Thursday, October 29, 2026. Sources: MS NOW, October 28; HuffPost, October 29; BizPac Review, October 29; Deadline, October 14; The Atlantic and Raw Story, October 2; the Associated Press via ABC7, May 6, and AZFamily, March 9; UPI, September 15; Sen. Padilla's office, September 15; Democracy Docket, October 17; 18 U.S.C. § 592.
