{"id":76674,"date":"2025-10-29T15:27:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=76674"},"modified":"2025-10-29T15:27:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:27:03","slug":"padilla-colleagues-warn-trump-may-declare-election-related-national-emergency-after-white-house-hires-prominent-election-denier-to-reexamine-2020-election-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=76674","title":{"rendered":"Padilla, Colleagues Warn Trump May Declare Election-Related National Emergency After White House Hires Prominent Election Denier to Reexamine 2020 Election Results"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senators: Kurt Olsen\u2019s appointment seems \u201cto be part of a scheme to convince the President to attempt a national emergency declaration to illegally claim unconstitutional federal powers over state and local election administration.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and California\u2019s former Secretary of State, led eight colleagues in\u00a0condemning<\/a>\u00a0the White House\u2019s\u00a0alarming hiring<\/a>\u00a0of former \u201cStop the Steal\u201d and Trump campaign lawyer Kurt Olsen as a \u201cspecial government employee\u201d to \u201cinvestigate\u201d the 2020 election again, five years later. The Senators emphasized that the White House\u2019s hiring of Olsen follows a clear pattern of hiring 2020 election deniers and Trump loyalists to do election work, raising fears that senior White House staff may enable President Trump to declare a national emergency to illegally interfere in state and local election administration.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe 2020 election was heavily litigated and closely examined, and there is no justification for White House staff in 2025 to waste taxpayer money on endlessly rehashing false 2020 election conspiracy theories,\u201d\u00a0wrote the Senators to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and White House Chief Counsel David Warrington.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cMr. Olsen is particularly ill-suited to lead such a probe, given that he advanced such conspiracy theories as he worked to prevent four battleground states from certifying the 2020 election.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cLet us be clear: any attempt to declare a national emergency to interfere in state and local election administration would be illegal and unconstitutional,\u201d\u00a0continued the Senators.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cWhile we are confident any such scheme would fail quickly in the face of judicial scrutiny, it still poses unacceptable risks of undermining future elections in this country. Therefore, we demand you closely oversee Mr. Olsen and other appointees to ensure they do not engage in illegal or unethical conduct in pursuit of an unconstitutional national emergency regarding elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On President Trump\u2019s 2020 campaign, Olsen worked to prevent the certification of valid election results in four states ahead of the January 6th Capitol insurrection. Since then, he has also been\u00a0sanctioned<\/a>\u00a0by Arizona\u2019s Supreme Court for lies he told to try to overturn the results in Kari Lake\u2019s 2022 gubernational bid, and he\u00a0pushed President Trump<\/a>\u00a0to make legal demands around voter data in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia ahead of the 2024 election to set up future election challenges. Olsen\u2019s position reportedly has\u00a0\u201cdirect\u201d access<\/a>\u00a0to the President, raising concerns after he said he\u00a0wants to examine<\/a>\u00a0election machines and repeatedly spread unfounded misinformation that these machines are not secure, despite major news networks paying hundreds of millions in defamation settlements for similar lies.<\/p>\n

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Olsen\u2019s hiring comes after other prominent election deniers like Heather Honey, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Election Integrity at the Department of Homeland Security, have pressured President Trump to declare a \u201cnational emergency\u201d to unconstitutionally influence how states administer elections. Prior to her appointment, Honey\u00a0advocated<\/a>\u00a0for Trump to seize \u201csome additional powers that don\u2019t exist right now,\u201d bypass Congress\u2019 authority, and \u201cmandate that states do things,\u201d predicating these changes on an investigation of the 2020 election and senior White House staff cooperation. Olsen\u2019s appointment to rehash 2020 election conspiracy theories further raises alarm bells on the potential for Trump to declare a national emergency.<\/p>\n

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The Senators also condemned Trump\u2019s\u00a0anti-voter executive order<\/a>\u00a0illegally directing the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to revise voting system standards and rescind voting machine certifications, and they slammed the President\u2019s threat to issue another illegal and unconstitutional executive order to\u00a0ban mail-in ballots<\/a>. They pushed White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and White House Counsel David Warrington to also make sure Olsen and other appointees follow the bipartisan\u00a0Help America Vote Act<\/em>\u00a0that established EAC as an independent entity outside of the White House\u2019s unilateral control.<\/p>\n

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In addition to Senator Padilla, the letter was also signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).<\/p>\n

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Senator Padilla has led the charge\u00a0opposing<\/a>\u00a0President Trump\u2019s unlawful attempt at a Presidential power grab through his anti-voter executive order. Earlier this year, Padilla led 14 Democratic Senators in\u00a0calling on President Trump<\/a>\u00a0to revoke his illegal executive order that would disenfranchise millions of Americans. Padilla also\u00a0led 11 Senators in introducing<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Defending America\u2019s Future Elections Act<\/em>\u00a0to repeal the order and prevent the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive voter registration data and state records. Additionally, Padilla and U.S. Representative Joe\u00a0Morelle (D-N.Y.-25)\u00a0warned officials<\/a>\u00a0at the EAC about the dangerous implications for elections\u00a0following\u00a0President Trump\u2019s executive order\u00a0purporting to bring independent regulatory agencies under total control\u00a0of the White House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senators: Kurt Olsen\u2019s appointment seems \u201cto...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76675,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76674\/revisions\/76675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}