Oscar hopefuls including Jessie Buckley and Timothée Chalamet gather for luncheon and class picture

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Nearly all of the 230 people up for Oscars across 24 categories gathered Tuesday for the Academy Award nominees luncheon, an event that functions as a celebration, group portrait session and orientation for next month's big ceremony.

Nominees including Jessie Buckley, Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio and Emma Stone sat for lunch and stood for a class photo alongside nominees for awards including best animated short and the newly created casting Oscar.

The ballroom at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, was especially full of nominees for “Sinners,” the most nominated film of all time, including star Michael B. Jordan and director Ryan Coogler.

Lynette Howell Taylor, elected in July as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, made her first address to Oscar nominees, and gave them a set of instructions on how to handle their acceptance speeches if they win.

“Be prepared,” she said. “Don’t say you didn’t expect it. You have a one in five chance of winning.”

She urged winners to “make it heartfelt,” not to try to thank everyone they can think of, pick one person to speak for a group of victors and hold speeches to 45 seconds.

The luncheon is a relatively egalitarian affair where big names mix with small ones and veteran nominees stand for photos with first-timers.

Craig Renaud, nominated for best documentary short for “Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud,” got to chat with DiCaprio, up for best actor for “One Battle After Another,” at the tables before the group photo.

Nearby, Mohammaddreza Eyni, co-director with Sara Khaki of documentary feature nominee “Cutting Through Rocks,” talked about his film with Ethan Hawke, nominated for best actor for “Blue Moon.”

The roll call where every nominee in attendance is summoned to the stage, is the centerpiece of the gathering. It feels much like the names being read off at a high school graduation. (Nominees even get a certificate on departure that looks like a diploma. “Woo-hoo!” best supporting actress nominee Elle Fanning said when handed hers on her way out, and asked for a photo with it.)

This year's roll call, read by actor and Academy Board of Governors member Lou Diamond Phillips, began with Delroy Lindo, up for best supporting actor for “Sinners,” and ended with Teyana Taylor, up for best supporting actress for its biggest competitor, “One Battle After Another.”

The luncheon was a return to tradition after last year's was called off because it fell amid Southern California's destructive wildfires. A cocktail reception with the class picture just a few days before the ceremony replaced it.

There were many happy meetings among nominees as they arrived. Steven Spielberg, nominated for best picture as a producer of “Hamnet,” chatted in the lobby with “One Battle” best director nominee Paul Thomas Anderson. Spielberg took a photo of Anderson leaning on an Oscar statue.

Chloé Zhao, up for her second best director Oscar for “Hamnet,” hugged former academy president Janet Yang.

Jacob Elordi, who stands 6-foot-5, embraced the nearly as tall director of Sirât, Oliver Laxe, near the entrance and attracted the attention of most of the cameras in the room. Elordi is up for best supporting actor for “Frankenstein” and “Sirât” is up for best international feature.

Academy members from 88 countries voted for the nominees, Howell said proudly during her speech, and every category had at least one international nominee.

Emma Stone, left, and Yorgos Lanthimos arrive at the 98th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Timothee Chalamet arrives at the 98th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Sev Ohanian, from left, Ryan Coogler, Zinzi Evans, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo, and Miles Caton arrive at the 98th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Teyana Taylor arrives at the 98th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Jessie Buckley arrives at the 98th Academy Awards Oscar nominees luncheon on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

ATLANTA (AP) — The FBI relied on years-old claims of fraud, many of them thoroughly investigated, to obtain a search warrant to seize ballots from election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, according to an affidavit unsealed Tuesday that shows the investigation began with a referral from an administration official who tried to help President Donald Trump overturn his 2020 election loss.

The affidavit provides the first public justification for an FBI search last month that targeted a county Trump and his allies have long seen as central to their false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. It cites claims that for years have been made by people who assert widespread fraud in the contest even though audits, state officials, courts and Trump's own former attorney general have all rejected the idea of widespread problems that could have altered the outcome.

The investigation was initiated by a referral from Kurt Olsen, who advised Trump as his campaign and supporters lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the 2020 election and now serves as an administration official overseeing the attempt to investigate Trump’s loss, according to the affidavit.

The search of the heavily Democratic county stirred immediate concerns among Democrats that Trump was marshaling the powers of the FBI and Justice Department to pursue retribution over his persistent claims of a stolen election and because of the unusual presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the country's director of national intelligence. The affidavit makes no mention of any evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election even though the possibility of such meddling has been a longstanding conspiracy theory among Trump supporters who question the vote count.

Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia by about 11,800 votes in an election overseen by a Republican secretary of state and certified by a Republican governor.

Georgia officials fighting in court for the return of the ballots have decried the search, with Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts on Tuesday calling the allegations “recycled rumors, lies, untruths and unproven conspiracy theories.”

“These accusations have already been debunked, but here we go again on a merry-go-round,” Pitts said. “Fulton County will fight. We’ll fight this with every resource that’s at our disposal and we will not stop fighting.”

The affidavit says the FBI is examining possible “deficiencies or defects” in the Fulton County vote count, including its admission that it does not have scanned images of all the ballots counted during the original count or the recount. Fulton County has also confirmed that some ballots were scanned multiple times during the recount, the affidavit says.

“If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be a violation of federal law regardless of whether the failure to retain records or the deprivation of a fair tabulation of a vote was outcome determinative for any particular election or race,” the document says.

The affidavit says seizure of the election records was necessary to determine whether any records "were destroyed and or the tabulation of votes included materially false votes.” It cites potential violations of a law regarding the preservation and retention of election records, a misdemeanor. It also cites a law that makes it a crime to “knowingly and willfully” deprive residents of a “fair and impartially conducted election process,” which is a felony.

But the document also expresses uncertainty about whether the potential defects constitute a crime, noting that elections in Fulton County have already been the subject of multiple reviews.

Investigations into complaints by the secretary of state’s office, an independent monitor and a performance review by the state elections board, which came at the urging of the Republican-controlled legislature, reached similar conclusions.

After a particularly disastrous primary election in 2020, an independent monitor was hired to observe the general election that year as part of an agreement between the county and the State Election Board. He documented “sloppy processes” and “systemic disorganization” but found no evidence of illegality or fraud.

Republican state lawmakers in 2021 used a provision of a new law to initiate a performance review of the county’s election practices. That review found that the county’s elections had been characterized by “disorganization and a lack of a sense of urgency in resolving issues.” But it also found the county had shown marked improvement.

According to the affidavit, the review board stated, “we do not see any evidence of fraud, intentional misconduct, or large systematic issues that would have affected the result of the November 2020 election.”

One of the central allegations is that someone inserted 17,852 “duplicate” ballot images into the Fulton County file. But the affidavit quotes one witness as noting that those potentially fake images were actually more pro-Trump than the confirmed Fulton County votes. This indicated to the witness, the affidavit states, “that the introduction of duplicate ballots was intended to make the recount numbers match more than to affect the outcome of the election.”

That was a similar conclusion as that of investigators with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, the affidavit adds, saying the Republican-run office found the error “not intentional misconduct.”

Another allegation focuses on “pristine” absentee ballots that an unnamed poll manager said she saw when the ballots were counted by hand. She said the ballots were not folded as they would have been if they were put in an envelope, felt different from the other ballots and were all filled in the same, the affidavit says.

A former official with the secretary of state’s office told the FBI that there would be unfolded absentee ballots in every election because they would be generated by vote review panel members when they examined damaged ballots.

Investigators with the secretary of state’s office looked into claims of pristine ballots in 2021, pulling boxes and batches identified by a woman who had worked as an auditor during the hand count, and found no evidence to support her claims.

Agents armed with a warrant spent hours on Jan. 28 at the county elections hub, just south of Atlanta, before driving off with trucks loaded with hundreds of cartons of election materials.

A week after the seizure, Fulton County officials filed a motion seeking the return of the materials that had been taken and the unsealing of the sworn statement presented to the judge who signed off on the search. The warrant sought the seizure of the following documents related to the 2020 election in the county: all ballots, tabulator tapes from the scanners that tally the votes, electronic ballot images created when the ballots were counted and then recounted, and all voter rolls.

“Claims that the 2020 election results were fraudulent or otherwise invalid have been exhaustively reviewed and, without exception, refuted,” the county argued in a court filing.

Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, left, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, enter a command vehicle as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

An FBI employee stands inside the Fulton County Election HUB as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Equipment is loaded into a truck inside the Fulton County Election HUB as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, is seen Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga, near Atlanta, as FBI agents search at the main election facility. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)