Democratic senators call for 2020 election denier Kurt Olsen’s removal from post
By Erin Banco
WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) – A group of Democratic lawmakers is calling for the removal of the White House’s election security czar, Kurt Olsen, arguing that the amount of time he worked as a special government employee exceeded the legal limit.
The group, led by Senator Alex Padilla, who represents California, wrote to the White House on Monday, urging the administration to fire Olsen or explain “how her continued service is legally justified,” according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters. Padilla is the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee.
Under U.S. law, special government employees can only serve 130 days in a 365-day period. Senators say Trump designated Olsen as a special government employee in October, which would mean she crossed that line.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Olsen is a Washington lawyer who became involved in the “Stop the Steal” effort following Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
He and several of Trump’s other former lawyers have repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” from Trump; This claim has been refuted many times in the courts.
Trump tapped Olsen again last year to lead the administration’s efforts to prove he won the 2020 election and that foreign actors had tampered with U.S. voting machines.
Olsen began working with the administration as early as February 2025, prompting a U.S. intelligence contractor to seek evidence of voter fraud in 2020, Reuters previously reported.
Co-signers of the letter include Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and other senators who serve on an election security task force aimed at mitigating threats to the midterm elections.
Padilla told Reuters in an interview on Monday that the group behind the letter had previously notified the White House of concerns about Olsen’s designation as a special government employee, and that her involvement in the seizure of voting machines and supplies in Georgia, Puerto Rico and Arizona had raised questions on Capitol Hill about the extent to which the White House was seeking to federalize elections.
Given her title in the White House, Olsen has oversight of how the administration attempts to implement an executive order signed by Trump in March 2025.
The order laid out a road map for the administration to take control of parts of the voting process. He called on states to share voter data with the federal government, among other things. He also said states should decertify voting machines in 36 states.
As Reuters reported last month, Olsen spent the past year working on an investigation that would prove U.S. voting machines were tampered with and that Trump won the 2020 race.
“If there is a role for the federal government, it is from Congress, not the executive branch, to help determine the time, place and manner of elections. Not the president,” Padilla said. he said. “But (Trump) continues to claim otherwise, and people like Kurt Olsen enable this conspiratorial thinking.”
(Reporting by Erin Banco; Editing by Don Durfee and Rosalba O’Brien)
