Last week, several federal election officials attended a summit, including prominent figures who worked to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, urging the president to declare a national emergency to take over this year’s midterm elections.
Participants at the meeting included Kurt Olsen, the White House attorney in charge of the 2020 election review, and Heather Haney, the Department of Homeland Security official in charge of election integrity, according to videos, photos and social media posts reviewed by ProPublica. The event was convened by Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and was also attended by Cleta Mitchell, who heads the Election Integrity Network, a group that has spread false claims of election fraud and non-referendum votes.
Election experts say the talks reflect an intensification of efforts to persuade President Trump to take unprecedented action to influence the vote in November. Courts have largely blocked his efforts to reshape elections through executive orders, and legislation that would have required stricter voter ID requirements across the country has stalled in Congress.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that activists associated with summit participants are circulating a draft executive order that would ban mail-in voting and eliminate voting machines as part of a federal takeover. Peter Ticktin, a lawyer who helped write the executive order and whose clients were at Summit, told ProPublica that the actions are “all part of the same effort.”
The summit follows other meetings and discussions between administration officials and activists, many of which have not been previously reported, dating back to at least last fall, according to emails and recordings obtained by ProPublica. U.S. election experts said the coordination within and outside the government meant the collapse of key guardrails.
“This meeting shows that the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election have become even more organized and are now integrated into the government apparatus,” said Brendan Fisher, director of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan democracy group. “This creates a significant risk that the administration is laying the groundwork to improperly restructure elections or go against the will of voters ahead of the midterm elections.”
Five of the six federal officials who attended the summit did not respond to questions from ProPublica about the event.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that attending a gathering of federal officials should not be interpreted as support for declaring a national emergency and that it is “common” for staff to contact outside allies who want to share policy ideas. The official pointed to comments made by Trump to PBS News denying that he was considering a national emergency or had read the draft executive order. “Any speculation about what policies the administration may or may not undertake is just that: speculation,” the official said.
President Trump has in the past expressed openness to a federal takeover as a way to stem expected Republican losses in November. In an interview with conservative podcaster Dan Bongino this month, he said Republicans needed to “hijack” elections and “nationalize voting.”
Mitchell did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about the summit. Mr. Flynn’s spokesperson responded to detailed questions from ProPublica by texting him, disparaging the experts who raised the concerns, saying, “LOL ‘experts.'”
The 30-person roundtable, held on February 19th in an office building in downtown Washington, DC, was sponsored by the Gold Institute for International Strategic Studies, a conservative think tank. Activists and government officials then dined together, according to photos seen by ProPublica.
Institute Director Flynn told social media personalities why he organized the event.
“Fighting” in battleground states from Arizona to Georgia, Ms. Flynn told Tommy Robinson on the sidelines of a rally. Robinson posted videos of these interactions online. “The whole theme of this event was to make sure we’re all not operating in our own little bubbles.”
Flynn has repeatedly urged Trump to declare a national emergency, writing on social media after the event: “We the people want fair elections, but given the current political environment in the United States, we know there is only one government office in the country that can make that happen.”
In addition to Mr. Olsen and Mr. Hannity, four other federal officials from agencies that will determine future elections attended the event. At least four of the six attended the dinner party.
One is Clay Parikh, a special government official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who assisted Olsen in the 2020 investigation. An ODNI spokesperson said Parikh attended the summit “in a personal capacity.”
Another, Mac Warner, worked on election litigation at the Justice Department. A department spokeswoman said Warner resigned the day after the event but did not receive approval from the agency’s ethics officials to participate.
The department “remains committed to preserving the integrity of our election system and continues to prioritize efforts to ensure all elections are free, fair, and transparent,” a spokesperson said in an email.
The third government official to attend the summit, Marcy McCarthy, directs communications for the country’s cyber defense agency, which oversees the security of voting machines and other election infrastructure.
Kari Lake, who was appointed by President Trump as a senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, was a featured speaker. Mr. Lake unsuccessfully worked with Mr. Olsen and Mr. Parikh to overturn his loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election.
“I showed up to the event and spoke for approximately 20 minutes about the overall importance of election integrity, an issue that transcends party affiliation and is important to all citizens of the United States and abroad. I left without listening to any other speakers,” Lake said in an email.
“Elections must be free of fraud or other irregularities that subvert the will of the people,” she added.
Activists announced at the meeting how to transform U.S. elections to support conservatives, based on social media posts and interviews with conservative media outlets such as Lindell TV, the streaming platform founded by pillow kingpin Mike Lindell. According to them, the group was divided into two camps. There are those who want to pursue a more progressive legal and legislative strategy, and those who want President Trump to declare a national emergency.
Several activists left the meeting convinced that President Trump should do the latter. By doing so, the president believes he can circumvent the Constitution’s mandate that elections be conducted by the states.
Patrick Byrne, former CEO of Overstock.com, a prominent funder of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, told Lindell TV that Trump has so far “showed good intentions” in not taking control of the U.S. election. “But at some point he has to do something, and that is something powerful: declare a national emergency,” Byrne said.
In response to questions from ProPublica, Byrne sent a screenshot of the poll, which he said suggests “two-thirds of Americans do not properly trust” the voting machines that the proposed national emergency declaration seeks to eliminate.
Will Huff, who has advocated for eliminating voting machines, told a conservative video blogger that Olsen, White House lawyers and other administration representatives would bring the rally’s “consensus” back to Trump. “This has to be a national emergency,” said Huff, campaign manager for the Republican candidate for Arkansas secretary of state.
In response to questions from ProPublica, Hough said in an email that Olsen and Trump will decide whether to declare a national emergency.
“The President was briefed on the findings regarding deficiencies in election infrastructure,” Huff wrote. “I believe there is a steady force around the president who wants to make sure that every action is first of all constitutional and legal, but also that it is supported by evidence.”
McCarthy, the cybersecurity official, expressed more general solidarity with other participants in a social media post about the summit. “I am grateful for the friendships we have made over the years, standing shoulder to shoulder and united by our purpose and beliefs,” she wrote. “The mission continues…and so does the fellowship.”
Among the conservative activists and officials who attended the summit were Marcy McCarthy, second from left, Heather Honey, fourth from right, and Cleta Mitchell, third from right. McCarthy posted about the event on LinkedIn. Screenshot by ProPublica. Edited by ProPublica.
Last week’s rally was the latest in a series of private interactions between conservative campaign activists and administration officials, according to emails, documents and recordings obtained by ProPublica. Many are involved in Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network. According to a report from ProPublica, Mr. Haney, like Mr. McCarthy, was the leader of the Election Integrity Network before taking the government post.
Previously unreported emails obtained by ProPublica show that just weeks after Haney joined the Department of Homeland Security, he briefed campaigners, the Republican secretary of state and another federal official on a conference call arranged by his former boss, Mitchell.
“We are excited to have her on the conference call this morning and hear about her work for election integrity within DHS,” Mitchell wrote in an email introducing the conference call presenter.
Mr. Honey did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about the call. Experts said Hanney’s press conference gave her former employer access that likely violated ethics rules in place under previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, although not this time.
Previous “ethics guardrails would have prevented some of the revolving door problems we’re seeing between the anti-election movement and government officials,” said Fisher, director of the Election Legal Center. These previous rules “should have prevented former employers and customers from receiving privileged access.”
