Democrats Warn Trump Will Declare An Election-Related National Emergency

A letter signed by Democratic Senators Alex Padilla (CA), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Jeff Merkley (OR), Jon Ossoff (GA), Adam Schiff (CA), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Chris Van Hollen (MD), Ron Wyden (OR) and Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders (VT), warns that President Trump may declare an election-related national emergency after the Administration hired former Trump campaign lawyer Kurt Olsen as a “special government employee” to investigate the 2020 election.

“The 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,” wrote the Senators to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and White House Chief Counsel David Warrington. “Mr. 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.”

“Let us be clear: any attempt to declare a national emergency to interfere in state and local election administration would be illegal and unconstitutional,” continued the Senators. “While 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.”

Olsen also represented Kari Lake in 2022, who upon his hiring said, “There is nobody I trust more on the topic of elections than Kurt Olsen. If we do not tackle election fraud and restore integrity, we will lose our country forever.”

Kari Lake: There is nobody I trust more on the topic of elections than Kurt Olsen.
If we do not tackle election fraud and restore integrity, we will lose our country forever. I know President Trump understands that.
Thank you, President Trump, for hiring Kurt Olsen! 📷 pic.twitter.com/l9Qn7dYFBP

— Gina Welch (@Gina_R_Welch) October 18, 2025

Yet, the 2020 hasn’t been “closely examined” as the Senators claim, and a majority of the complaints and substantial evidence by Trump’s campaign lawyers were simply dismissed by the courts due to “lack of standing.”

Under the guise of the pandemic, the unilateral move in a majority of states to implement universal mail ballots and unmanned ballot drop boxes destroyed a ballot’s chain of custody and certainly didn’t instill confidence in election integrity. The lack of voter ID in a majority of states is also a concern to a majority of voters, including registered Democrats. Bloated, inaccurate voter rolls are of equal concern.

One of the first actions by the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, is to review states’ voters rolls to ensure that living, verifiable U.S. citizens are legally registered.

Last month the Globe reported:

On Thursday, the United States Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced it filed federal lawsuits against six states for failure to produce their statewide voter registration lists upon request. California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania failed or refused to provide their respective voter rolls.

In 2024, Special Envoy Ric Grenell, then-Assemblyman Bill Essayli, and Assembly Candidate Carl DeMaio called upon California Secretary of State Shirley Weber to do her job to get county registrars of voters to report their results faster. “We reiterate the urgent need to demand voter roll cleanup, same-day, in-person voting, voter identification, and a transparent counting strategy.”

If a state can’t prove that its voter rolls are accurate, the only conclusion is that they are hiding dead voters, illegal aliens, former residents, and duplicate registrations, allowing and encouraging cheating.

According to the lawsuits, the Attorney General is uniquely charged by Congress with the enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which were designed by Congress to ensure that states have proper and effective voter registration and voter list maintenance programs. The Attorney General also has the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) at her disposal to demand the production, inspection, and analysis of the statewide voter registration lists, the DOJ noted.

“States are required to safeguard American elections by complying with our federal elections laws,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Clean voter rolls protect American citizens from voting fraud and abuse, and restore their confidence that their states’ elections are conducted properly, with integrity, and in compliance with the law.”

For the upcoming Proposition 50 election on November 4, the DOJ announced they will be sending election monitors to polling locations throughout California.

Governor Gavin Newsom responded, “Donald Trump’s puppet DOJ has no business screwing around with next month’s election. Sending the feds into California polling places is a deliberate attempt to scare off voters and undermine a fair election. We will not back down. Californians decide our future — no one else.”

To which Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon replied, “Calm down, bro.”

Seems like many Democrats need to calm down and let Olsen and the DOJ do their respective jobs on behalf of the near 80 million American’s that voted for this administration. If their investigations determine that the 2020 election was the “safest and most secure election in history” and the voter rolls are as clean as a whistle, then every American can be assured that the country continues to operate as a republic that guarantees “one person, one vote.”