While several notable conspiracy theorists work in the Trump administration, one who has flown under the radar is beginning to gain traction: Kurt Olsen. The attorney was hired by the White House last year to oversee election security and has recently ramped up his efforts to investigate the 2020 election. With the midterms on the horizon, Olsen’s role within President Donald Trump’s administration may be growing.
Olsen’s beginnings and election denial
Olsen, 63, graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served as a Navy SEAL. He later worked as a lawyer and co-founded a law firm. But his national profile began to climb following Trump’s loss to now-former President Joe Biden in 2020. Over the last six years, Olsen has built a “long history of fighting the 2020 election results,” said USA Today.
He notably “joined the Texas attorney general’s attempt to get the Supreme Court to stop four swing states from certifying Biden's 2020 victory over Trump,” said USA Today. The lawyer grew closer to Trump after the election and had “multiple phone calls” with him during the Jan. 6 insurrection, Politico reported in 2022.
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The White House hired Olsen in October 2025 as the president’s head of election security, and gave him the “power to refer criminal investigations” into “things that have been thoroughly debunked,” said The New York Times. Olsen is one of several prominent election deniers working for the administration who is “using the power of the state to keep Trump’s denialism alive.” But even in a “constellation of conspiracists, Olsen stands out.”
One crucial moment on the national stage for Olsen came in January 2026, when the FBI used a search warrant to seize ballots and records related to the 2020 race from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia. The FBI’s investigation “originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen,” an affidavit for the search warrant said. The FBI was allegedly looking for irregularities in Georgia’s elections at Olsen’s behest.
This is not the only situation in which Olsen has seemingly had significant power in the White House. Trump has “directed top U.S. spy agencies to share sensitive intelligence about the 2020 election” with Olsen, according to Politico. This led him to review “some sensitive compartmented intelligence programs, which are among the most highly classified material stored by U.S. spy agencies.” This move is unusual given that Olsen has “no known experience working with the U.S. spy community.”
The CIA later confirmed that the agency is working with Olsen. “The president has asked Olsen to look at intelligence related to the 2020 election and the agency is ensuring that he has the access necessary to do his work,” a CIA spokesperson told Politico. This all comes as many are sounding the alarm about his involvement. Olsen has a “history of abusing his law license to spread lies about our elections,” Christine P. Sun, a senior vice president at the States United Democracy Center, told the Times. “Now, he’s using his role in the administration and the power of the federal government to take actions fueled by those same lies.”
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Justin Klawans has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022. He began his career covering local news before joining Newsweek as a breaking news reporter, where he wrote about politics, national and global affairs, business, crime, sports, film, television and other news. Justin has also freelanced for outlets including Collider and United Press International.
