Trump Officials Attend Election Denier Summit Pushing for Presidential Takeover of Midterms

Several high-ranking federal election officials attended a summit last week where prominent figures who worked to overturn Donald Trump's 2020 election loss pressed the president to declare a national emergency to take over this year's midterms. Attendees included Kurt Olsen, a White House lawyer charged with reinvestigating the 2020 election, and Heather Honey, the Department of Homeland Security official in charge of election integrity. The event was convened by Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, and attended by Cleta Mitchell, who directs the Election Integrity Network, a group that has spread false claims about election fraud and noncitizen voting. Election experts say the meeting reflects an intensifying push to persuade Trump to take unprecedented actions to affect the November vote. Courts have largely blocked his efforts to reshape elections through executive orders, and legislation mandating strict voter ID requirements has stalled in Congress. Activists associated with summit attendees have been circulating a draft executive order that would ban mail-in ballots and eliminate voting machines as part of a federal takeover. Peter Ticktin, a lawyer who worked on the executive order and had a client at the summit, confirmed these actions were being discussed.