Trump must fire 2020-denier Kurt Olsen from election integrity post, Democratic senators demand

Democratic senators demanded that the White House immediately end Kurt Olsen’s tenure as President Donald Trump’s director of election security and integrity Monday.

The letter alleges that Olsen, an architect of Trump’s 2020 election denialism, had exceeded the 130 day limit as a “special government employee” (SGE).

Led by Senate Rules and Administration Committee ranking member Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the eleven signatory senators decried Olsen’s appointment to begin with, saying they warned he would peddle conspiracy theories when he was first named to the temporary post. 

“These concerns have been borne out. Public court filings have confirmed that Olsen made debunked conspiracy theories the basis of the FBI’s search warrant in the Administration’s unprecedented raid on Fulton County, Georgia election offices, with the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in attendance,” Padilla and the other senators wrote. “Public reporting also shows that Olsen’s investigation was behind the Administration’s seizure of election equipment in Puerto Rico, and he remains unpersuaded that even his own biased investigation has found no evidence for these conspiracy theories.”

Olsen was sanctioned by the Arizona Supreme Court in 2025 for making false statements related to his representation of Kari Lake, who aped Trump’s election denialism after losing her own 2022 bid for governor.

The FBI’s raid and seizure of Fulton County, Georgia’s ballots from the 2020 election was based on unfounded claims made by Olsen, unsealed court documents have shown. Olsen initiated the criminal investigation into Fulton County, the Department of Justice (DOJ) admitted in ongoing litigation there over the raid. A recent ProPublica report suggests that the FBI relied on already debunked reports to justify the probe. 

As recriminations over the FBI’s actions have mounted, a federal judge overseeing Fulton County’s lawsuit challenging its legality ordered the DOJ to provide a timeline of events leading up to the raid. But the FBI has not relented, demanding in a court filing that Fulton County turn over personal information on election workers and volunteers who ran the 2020 elections. 

While the Democrats argued Olsen should have never been appointed in the first place, they noted that his appointment should come to an end in any case. 

Federal law limits SGEs to 130 days in any 365-day period. “Public reports of Olsen’s appointment date back to as early as October 18, 2025, over 200 days ago,” the Senators wrote. “Thus, it is past time to end this temporary appointment or provide a full explanation of how his continued service is legally justified, including Olsen’s exact dates of service.”

Over the weekend, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche falsely claimed in a Fox News interview there was a “ton of evidence” that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump. Blanche declined to say when such evidence, if it exists, might be released, or to confirm that criminal charges related to 2020 will be filed. 

All the lies over the 2020 election — the results of which have been confirmed repeatedly by multiple audits and recounts in Georgia and other states where Trump falsely claimed victory — preface assaults on the validity of future elections, the senators warned. 

“President Trump is then using these theories to justify his ongoing baseless claims about the 2020 election and assert illegal and unconstitutional powers to ‘take over the voting’ in certain states in the upcoming election,” they wrote.