Exclusive: Trump's 'Stop the Steal' lawyer pushed for voter fraud evidence from US intelligence agency [View all]

Source: Reuters

February 11, 2026 5:22 PM EST Updated 6 hours ago


WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - A lawyer leading efforts to bolster U.S. President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" pushed a U.S. intelligence contractor to search for evidence of voter fraud in that race, two people familiar with the events said. Mojave Research Inc. was contracted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to study vulnerabilities in voting machines used in Puerto Rico's 2024 elections. The Mojave analysts were examining the machines for potential weaknesses that hackers or others could exploit, said the sources.

The machines were removed and checked by officials and law enforcement officials in May. ODNI has said the move followed public reports about problems with the security of Puerto Rico's voting machines. Kurt Olsen, a lawyer involved with the “Stop the Steal” effort after Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, wanted Mojave to broaden the scope of its work and search for evidence that could support his government investigation into the validity of the 2020 election results, said the people familiar with the events, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Olsen, a former Trump campaign lawyer, has since October worked as a special government employee in the administration to re-investigate the 2020 election. At several points during Mojave’s investigation in Puerto Rico, Olsen insisted in conversations with the contractor that it search for vulnerabilities that could have affected the 2020 election results, one source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Mojave, which is based in Reston, Virginia and has done AI-based research for ODNI, instead kept its probe focused on how to secure future elections, one of the sources said. Reuters could not determine why it declined to alter the focus of its work. The role of Mojave and its interaction with Olsen have not been previously reported.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trumps-stop-steal-lawyer-pushed-voter-fraud-evidence-us-intelligence-agency-2026-02-11/