Key 2020 election denier is still working to prove it was stolen -- now from inside the White House [View all]

Source: CNN Politics

PUBLISHED Mar 8, 2026, 5:00 AM ET


Kurt Olsen became a key player in some of President Donald Trump’s most far-fetched 2020 election reversal schemes because he believed “that something was not right” in how he saw election officials handle the presidential count in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere.

Five years later, he’s back on familiar ground — in Trump’s ear and focused on Fulton County. The man who once described his hunt for voter fraud as an effort to “save the country” now has a direct line to the president, giving him more influence than ever. After Olsen worked alongside some of the most prominent 2020 election deniers while Trump was out of office, the president named him the White House’s director of election security and integrity in October.

From his new perch, Olsen drafted the criminal referral to the Justice Department that led to an unprecedented FBI seizure of Fulton County’s 2020 ballots in January. Olsen has access to Trump through his role and calls the president directly, sources familiar with internal White House deliberations tell CNN. While there is a larger White House push related to “election integrity” and voting that’s focused on future elections, the sources say Olsen’s work is mostly on a separate track reexamining the 2020 election, which Trump still falsely claims was stolen.

Olsen’s 2020 efforts also overlap with those 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 told CNN. Olsen did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/08/politics/kurt-olsen-2020-election-fraud-trump