Eleven Democratic senators on Monday demanded that the White House immediately end Kurt Olsen’s tenure as President Donald Trump’s director of election security and integrity, saying he has stayed in the temporary job far beyond the 130-day limit for special government employees. The lawmakers, led by Senate Rules and Administration Committee ranking member Alex Padilla, said Olsen’s appointment was over 200 days old and asked for either his removal or a full explanation of how his continued service is legally justified.
The letter says the senators had warned when Olsen was first named that he would peddle conspiracy theories, and they say that warning has now been borne out. Padilla and the others wrote that public court filings confirmed Olsen made debunked conspiracy theories the basis of the FBI’s search warrant in the administration’s raid on Fulton County, Georgia, election offices, and that public reporting shows his investigation was behind the administration’s seizure of election equipment in Puerto Rico. They also said Olsen remains unconvinced even though his own biased investigation has turned up no evidence for those theories.
That criticism lands against a backdrop of aggressive election-related actions tied to the 2020 vote. Unsealed court documents showed Olsen initiated the criminal investigation into Fulton County, and the Department of Justice has admitted in ongoing litigation that he did so. A federal judge overseeing Fulton County’s lawsuit challenging the raid has ordered the Justice Department to provide a timeline of events leading up to it, while the FBI has separately asked in court that Fulton County turn over personal information on election workers and volunteers who ran the 2020 elections.
The senators’ push also comes after repeated confirmations of the 2020 results through audits and recounts in Georgia and other states where Trump falsely claimed victory, yet the administration has continued to elevate claims that those results were tainted. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche added to that dispute in a interview, saying there was “a ton of evidence” the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump, while declining to say when such evidence might be released or whether criminal charges tied to 2020 would be filed.
The conflict over Olsen is no longer just about one temporary appointment. It now turns on whether the White House can defend keeping a special government employee in place past the legal limit while he remains tied to searches, seizures and litigation built around claims already rejected by audits, recounts and court records.
