Some eyebrow-raising revelations surfaced Tuesday in a newly unsealed FBI affidavit on the Fulton County elections hub raid this month.
Kurt Olsen, an attorney appointed by President Donald Trump who worked with the president to undermine the 2020 presidential election results, was the person who made the referral for the FBI to investigate the Fulton County, Georgia, election offices, according to reports.
Several sources told Politico on Monday that Trump had instructed top American spy agencies to divulge sensitive information to Olsen, his former campaign lawyer, about the 2020 election. Olsen has continued to be a temporary government employee working with the White House.
Trump has long claimed that fraud is what caused him to lose the 2020 presidential election to former President Joe Biden. This theory has been repeatedly debunked.
The new information discovered in the affidavit prompted reactions from a number of experts.
"Affidavit in Fulton County search is out. Trump lawyer/election denier Kurt Olsen authorized the search," HuffPost reporter Paul Blumenthal wrote on Bluesky.
"So a Trump attorney that aided his 2020 campaign (and wrote a memo encouraging Pence to skip counting electoral votes) was given an 'election integrity' job in the administration, where he made a referral to investigate Fulton County," MS NOW contributor Philip Bump wrote on Bluesky.
"It rehashes debunked arguments about impropriety in order to establish a predicate for seizing election material — on the basis that mistakes that occurred might have been intentional and therefore criminal. It's all transparently contrived," Bump wrote.
The move could have serious repercussions for the Trump administration.
"Just to reinforce: The material was seized not by claiming the election was stolen but that ballots were mishandled, which may have been criminal. It's an end run, like saying that there's a national emergency that demands a tariff in response. It's an abuse of power, given the obvious intent here," Bump added.
