Kurt Olsen grew to become a key participant in a few of President Donald Trump’s most far-fetched 2020 election reversal schemes as a result of he believed “that something was not right” in how he noticed election officers deal with the presidential rely in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere.
Five years later, he’s again on acquainted floor — in Trump’s ear and targeted on Fulton County. The man who as soon as described his hunt for voter fraud as an effort to “save the country” now has a direct line to the president, giving him extra affect than ever.
After Olsen labored alongside a few of the most outstanding 2020 election deniers whereas Trump was out of workplace, the president named him the White House’s director of election safety and integrity in October. From his new perch, Olsen drafted the legal referral to the Justice Department that led to an unprecedented FBI seizure of Fulton County’s 2020 ballots in January.
Olsen has entry to Trump via his position and calls the president instantly, sources aware of inner White House deliberations inform NCS. While there is a larger White House push associated to “election integrity” and voting that’s targeted on future elections, the sources say Olsen’s work is totally on a separate observe reexamining the 2020 election, which Trump still falsely claims was stolen. Olsen’s 2020 efforts additionally overlap with these of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, whose presence at the Fulton County FBI search has prompted numerous questions about her involvement.
“He’s just kind of doing his own thing,” one White House official informed NCS.
Olsen didn’t reply to NCS’s requests for remark.
The Fulton poll seizure alarmed state election officers who’re afraid of what the administration is planning for the midterms amid Trump’s name to “nationalize” elections and his acknowledged plans to issue a new executive order associated to voting.
“I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future. There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post final month.
The federal authorities additionally has been pushing states to hand over their voter rolls, prompting even some Republican state officers to push back.
The Fulton County seizure has underscored the lack of authorized brakes on this administration, as the sorts of attorneys in the first Trump administration who stood in Trump and Olsen’s manner — stopping the federal authorities from getting concerned in the president’s most flagrant election reversal gambits — are not round to play an analogous position.
“He’s emblematic of the change in guard between Trump 1 and Trump 2,” Stephen Richer, who was a prime Republican election official in Arizona’s Maricopa County from 2021 to 2025, stated of Olsen. “Usually someone of his caliber would not have gotten the time of day during the first Trump administration.”
Richer, who was a defendant in a 2022 election fraud case introduced by Olsen on behalf of Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, stated that Olsen impressed what was beforehand “unthinkable” in the world of election administration: the federal seizure of ballots. (Richer later brought a defamation case in opposition to Lake for her false claims that he had “sabotaged” the election, which was settled in 2024.)
The presence of Gabbard, who leads the intelligence neighborhood however has no position in home regulation enforcement issues, at the Fulton County seizure has additional raised suspicions about what the Trump administration is planning. (Her workplace says she’s main “counterintelligence matters related to election security.”)
“Tulsi Gabbard, through Kurt Olsen, is going to say, without any basis in fact, that there’s evidence foreign intelligence services have compromised vote tabulation software and had manipulated it in 2020 and that therefore it’s very important that states follow these executive orders that have come out about voter ID and mail in votes,” predicted one legal professional who is aware of inner discussions about the investigation.
Trump’s allies outdoors the White House have been pushing an government order, written final spring, that will declare a nationwide emergency to enact new federal powers over elections, that are run by states beneath the Constitution. The draft doc, which was obtained by NCS and first reported by The Washington Post, consists of curbing most mail-in voting and banning the use of voting machines, that are at the coronary heart of many 2020 election conspiracies.
While White House officers say Trump might pursue an government order associated to voter ID if Congress doesn’t pass the SAVE Act, there’s no indication but that the White House is contemplating declaring a nationwide emergency. Trump informed reporters not too long ago he had not heard about the draft order.
Last month, Olsen was certainly one of a half-dozen Trump administration officers who attended an “election integrity summit” in Washington alongside many who labored to assist Trump overturn the 2020 election, ProPublica reported.
As Olsen hunts for election fraud from his White House place, sources say Trump has granted him entry to categorised data from the intelligence neighborhood associated to the 2020 election, a transfer that was first reported by Politico.
Sources aware of the matter stated the CIA and the National Security Agency are in energetic conversations about how they share such materials. They’ve offered details about 2020 to Olsen, the sources stated, however to date his scope has been restricted to that election.
Olsen has additionally labored with FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, who was current at the Fulton County search, in his efforts to relitigate the 2020 election, in accordance to the sources.
Democratic lawmakers on the Senate and House Intelligence committees have raised considerations about the Trump administration’s determination to enable Olsen entry to extremely categorised materials associated to international election interference efforts — however are still working to get an understanding of the scope of fabric he shall be offered, in accordance to two sources aware of the matter.
One US official characterised Olsen’s well-documented views about the 2020 election as “kooky” however acknowledged that, by itself, is not purpose sufficient to limit his entry to related categorised intelligence since he clearly has been given a broad investigative mandate by the president. Olsen has additionally been vetted by US intelligence officers who didn’t determine any “red flags” that will stop him from accessing categorised data, in accordance to a supply aware of the matter.
A White House official stated each particular person given entry to categorised data “goes through an extensive background review, including record checks and personal interviews.”
The Fulton County search was the first proof of Olsen’s affect. His position got here to gentle when a courtroom unsealed the FBI’s search warrant utility for the county’s ballots, together with an affidavit that described the investigation as having “originated from a referral” despatched by Olsen.
The utility’s affidavit is constructed round allegations of election fraud which have lengthy circulated in far-right circles, resembling theories of lacking poll pictures or different alleged discrepancies in the rely, which have already been investigated by the state and located not to have affected the ultimate outcomes.
In a courtroom case demanding the federal authorities return the seized election supplies, Fulton County accused the Justice Department of constructing “serious” omissions of knowledge that will have solid doubt on the credibility of the witnesses it was utilizing to justify the search. The county additionally famous that Olsen had been sanctioned by a number of courts.
The FBI’s affidavit was stuffed with “gross mischaracterizations of the facts of how elections work and are directly at odds with the findings and conclusions of all of the prior investigations of the November 2020 election in Fulton County,” Ryan Macias, an election expertise and safety professional who has labored on hundreds of elections, wrote in a declaration on the county’s behalf.
In response, the Justice Department distanced itself from Olsen’s position as DOJ attorneys argued that Fulton County’s claims of bias have been “exceedingly weak.”
“For example, they attack Kurt Olsen. But the affidavit merely mentions that this investigation originated from a referral sent by Olsen. It does not rely on him as a witness or for any evidence,” DOJ wrote in a submitting final month. The choose scrapped plans for a February 27 listening to during which he was anticipated to scrutinize the warrant, with an order that despatched the dispute to mediation for now.
In his present White House position, which started in October 2025, Olsen serves as a “special government employee” — a federal employment designation for advisers who’re supposed to work for the authorities for up to 130 days inside a yearlong interval.
Bodycam launched of FBI looking out Georgia’s Fulton County elections workplace
Olsen’s position inside the White House is all the extra exceptional as a result of he had by no means labored in election regulation earlier than the 2020 election.
Olsen, a former Navy SEAL, had a prolonged authorized profession that included a stint at the Washington workplace of Kirland & Ellis, the place he developed the connections that will lead him into Trump’s circle in the chaotic weeks after the 2020 election. Before the 2020 election, he was a companion at Klafter, Olsen and Laffer, the place he labored in securities litigation.
Depositions, lawsuits, congressional testimony and different courtroom filings from the previous a number of years assist clarify how Olsen went from a lawyer representing company purchasers to a pursuer of election conspiracies.
Testifying at the 2023 California State Bar trial of John Eastman, who confronted attorney disciplinary proceedings for his position serving to Trump attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Olsen stated that after watching video clips and studying experiences after the election, he got here to imagine there have been “a number of things that just did not make sense.”
He pointed particularly to how the counting of ballots stopped in Fulton County in the early morning hours after the election. (Ballot processing that evening was briefly paused when a water pipe burst in the counting facility.)
Olsen bought into Trump’s orbit via a lawyer buddy who related him to Ken Starr, the former Clinton particular counsel who was additionally a Kirkland alum. He was then put in contact with a small group of attorneys who labored on a plan to problem Electoral College votes of a number of battleground states at the Supreme Court.
Olsen stated they reached out to a number of Republican state attorneys basic to be a part of the criticism, however solely Texas’ Ken Paxton signed onto the case. “In my opinion, Texas AG Paxton had the courage to step forward when he recognized that something was seriously wrong with the election,” Olsen testified.
When the Supreme Court dismissed the Texas complaint for lack of standing, Olsen turned to the Justice Department and performing Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. In late December, Olsen known as Rosen and informed him Trump wished him to file a criticism at the Supreme Court “by noon today” to invalidate the electors for six swing states.
When Rosen resisted the demand, Olsen made a veiled menace: “You’re going to force me to call the president and tell him you’re recalcitrant,” Olsen informed the performing AG, in accordance to Rosen’s later testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
On the night of January 6, 2021, after pro-Trump rioters attacked the Capitol, Trump and Olsen spoke by telephone twice, in accordance to the House January 6 committee’s report.
In the years since the 2020 election, Olsen has labored with a few of the most outstanding conservative election deniers, together with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Lake. Olsen represented Lake when she challenged her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial loss, and he was sanctioned by the Arizona Supreme Court for making false claims in courtroom about the legitimacy of the election.
Olsen took a depart from his regulation agency, Klafter, Olsen and Laffer, in December 2020, and formally left in February 2021, in accordance to a former colleague.
That identical month, Trump launched Olsen to Lindell, Olsen stated at a 2023 deposition in a defamation lawsuit a Dominion Voting Systems government introduced in opposition to Lindell. Olsen started representing Lindell as the latter pursued election fraud claims and confronted defamation lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic.
A witness for Lake in her election contest, Clay Parikh, is now additionally working for the Trump administration and was cited in the Fulton County search warrant utility.
Court testimony reviewed by NCS provided a window into Olsen’s enthusiastic about his 2020 election work, resembling explaining in a 2023 deposition for a lawsuit in opposition to Lindell that he had billed the MyPillow CEO solely as soon as after working with him a number of years.
“I view this more as an effort to save the country,” Olsen stated, “so I haven’t really looked at this from a standpoint of seeking profit from my representation.”