President Donald Trump has brought a lawyer involved in the “Stop the Steal” effort into the White House to investigate the 2020 election from within the federal government, intensifying his ongoing effort to challenge the legitimacy of his loss to Joe Biden, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Kurt Olsen, a former Trump campaign attorney who pushed legal challenges claiming widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, has quietly joined the administration as a special government employee, according to reporting first confirmed by The Wall Street Journal.
The appointment allows Olsen to work inside the White House for 130 days without divesting from his private legal interests.
Two people familiar with the matter said Olsen is communicating directly with President Trump and has expressed intent to examine voting machines. Olsen has also begun requesting classified 2020 election information from U.S. intelligence agencies.
Olsen previously sought to bring a lawsuit before the Supreme Court on behalf of Texas, attempting to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory, a legal challenge the high court rejected. He was part of the effort labeled “Stop the Steal,” which filed lawsuits in multiple battleground states. That effort culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the second impeachment of Trump.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of most of the more than 1,500 people charged in connection with Jan. 6, according to Reuters. He has also installed several associates who supported the effort into key government roles.
Marc Short, former chief of staff to then-Vice President Mike Pence, told the Journal that Trump “has effectively changed the factual history of that event in a lot of people’s minds already.”
Trump this week attacked special counsel Jack Smith, who charged him with allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, calling Smith “a criminal” and a target for prosecution. During recent Senate hearings, Republican lawmakers denounced Biden-era Justice Department intelligence-gathering, specifically criticizing its collection of senators’ phone records in the days surrounding Jan. 6.
FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X that he had fired “those who acted unethically” and ordered an inquiry into Smith’s subpoena tactics.
Olsen has publicly discussed continuing legal efforts around disputed voting systems ahead of the 2024 contest. During the campaign, senior Trump officials reportedly told him to file his own legal demands unless the campaign directly authorized them, according to the New York Times.
The Justice Department has also requested election records from states narrowly won by Biden in 2020, including Arizona, whose Republican-led post-election audit reaffirmed Biden’s win. Democratic secretaries of state pushed back on the DOJ requests, saying they raised privacy and federal overreach concerns.
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