October 20, 2025

While millions of Americans peacefully protested for “No Kings Day” this weekend, Donald Trump’s administration was busy working to undermine the upcoming midterm elections. Late Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that prominent election denier Kurt Olsen has joined the White House to focus on investigating the 2020 election and voting machines. This is just the latest step in the administration’s ongoing war on free and fair elections.

Though less well-known than some of the more high-profile election deniers, Olsen is no less committed to spreading false conspiracy theories about voting equipment and election results. His emergence as a government employee is just more evidence of Trump’s planned assault on the midterms. 

Olsen has a rich election denier backstory. He was part of the 2020 post-election legal effort that asked the Supreme Court to throw out the election results in four states. When that failed, he tried to convince the Department of Justice to file its own lawsuit — an effort that even Trump’s DOJ refused.

His work since then has been no less dangerous.

In 2022, he represented Arizona’s Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, in a series of cases surrounding her failed election. In one case, the Arizona Supreme Court sanctioned Olsen and Lake’s other lawyers for making claims that were “unequivocally false.” In another case, a federal court sanctioned Olsen and another attorney for making “false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions” and acting “in bad faith.”

In the run-up to 2024, Olsen was once again in Trump’s orbit, reportedly laying the groundwork to challenge the results if Trump lost. Despite being considered a “fringe figure” in the past, he is now a federal government employee seeking access to sensitive information about voting equipment and the 2020 election.

Olsen’s latest gig in Trump’s White House isn’t surprising. The president loves to surround himself with election denialists who are sure to be loyal soldiers for his cause. Recall that after losing in 2020, Stephen Miller — now Trump’s top aide — founded a legal organization deeply involved in efforts to alter voting rules and curtail voting rights in 2022 and 2024.

Now-Attorney General Pam Bondi likely caught Trump’s eye when she was promoting election denialism in the aftermath of the 2020 election. And, of course, it’s hard to imagine Kash Patel would be in his current position as head of the FBI if he had not been such a vocal proponent of the Big Lie.

From top to bottom, this administration is staffed with vocal election deniers and committed vote suppressors eager to help Trump cling to power — no matter how illegal or unethical. 

And now, with election conspiracists taking center stage, Trump is slowly but surely desensitizing the public to a brand of authoritarianism aimed at subverting the will of the electorate.

His election-related executive order is designed to make voter registration more difficult and mail-in voting more restrictive. The administration is trying to decertify voting equipment and take control of key federal agencies. Most troublingly, Trump is asserting a presidential power over election administration that does not exist.

And just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. Trump is defunding and firing key parts of the government that ensure elections are free of foreign interference — while deploying the National Guard and masked federal law enforcement in major U.S. cities with large Democratic-leaning populations. He has promised to expand those efforts.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has been turned into a weapon of war against Trump’s perceived opponents. He is normalizing direct presidential control over hiring and firing decisions within the DOJ, including who gets investigated and prosecuted.

Just as he is using the threat of criminal prosecution as a hammer against his foes, he is also using the pardon power to reward his political allies. The combined effect is to force Democrats and their supporters to act with excessive caution while emboldening Republicans to behave with reckless aggression.

And that’s only what Trump has done so far. The midterms are still more than a year away — it’s going to get worse.

He is already threatening to go after funders of Democratic candidates and causes. We should expect those efforts to expand and intensify as the midterms approach. He aims to target the critical infrastructure that allows Democrats and progressives to raise funds to oppose him. He will undoubtedly continue to pressure private companies — including media organizations — to tilt the playing field in Republicans’ favor.

He has claimed that additional executive orders are in the works. He says he plans to ban most mail-in voting, impose strict photo ID requirements, and mandate only using paper ballots. Most ominously, he wants to usurp the power to count and tabulate election results by turning states into his vassals.

Then there are the voting laws being enacted by the states. Trump has demonstrated his dominance over Republican-controlled legislatures as they enact grotesque new gerrymanders at his direction. When the architect behind Texas’s new map testified in court, he confirmed that he took his direction from the White House — not the Texas legislature.

This will not end with Texas, nor will it stop at redistricting. As we approach 2026, Trump will begin dictating specific voter registration, voting, counting, and certification laws, policies, and actions to compliant state Republicans.

To help him, the DOJ is already seeking to collect sensitive voter data on every single American. States that refuse to turn this information over willingly are being sued. I predict that those who cooperate will be rewarded. 

In short, the Republican voter suppression and election subversion machine will have both state and federal components. It will have civil, criminal, and administrative tools at its disposal. It will have masked federal agents and the military. It will be ruthless and act as if it is above the law.

I am laying this out today — immediately following No Kings Day — because I want us to understand what the fight against authoritarianism means for the future of free and fair elections. When we marched, we were not only protesting Trump’s assaults on civil liberties and the rule of law; we were standing up for the right of citizens to choose their own leaders.

That is what it means to stand against a king. That is what it means to be an American. And that is what we must continue to fight for — not just on one weekend, but every day until this wannabe king leaves his castle.