The U.S. Justice Department's investigation into the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, started with a referral from an election integrity official appointed by President Donald Trump, court documents showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. 

Kurt Olsen, an attorney involved in legal challenges to Trump's defeat in the 2020 election, referred the matter to the FBI. Olsen has recently been serving as a Trump-appointed official focused on election integrity and security, according to an FBI affidavit made public in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

The document lays out evidence used to justify an FBI search of Fulton County's election center last month, during which agents seized more than 600 boxes of ballots and other material related to the 2020 election, according to Reuters.