Team Trump turned on contractor after it failed to bolster election conspiracy theory

In its pursuit of assorted election conspiracy theories, Donald Trump and his team have occasionally used outside contractors to lend a hand. After the president lost in 2020, for example, he hired the Berkeley Research Group to uncover evidence of widespread voter fraud and election irregularities. This did not go well because there was no such evidence to find.

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Trump then he hired Simpatico Software Systems, which also failed to turn his fantasies into reality for the same reason.

This week, a third such example is coming into focus, though the reactions to this contractor’s findings have been a little different.

While Kurt Olsen’s name is probably unfamiliar to most Americans, he’s in a position the public ought to care about. The former Trump campaign lawyer and prominent election denier was brought onto the president’s team last year and given the title of “Director of Election Security and Integrity,” charged with helping to prove Trump’s discredited conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat. Politico reported in February the president has even directed top U.S. spy agencies to “share sensitive intelligence” with Olsen to help in his endeavors.

Reuters reported this week that Olsen and his colleagues set out to prove discredited conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems machines, which he apparently suspected had been infected with some kind of malicious Venezuelan code. Trump administration officials even scrutinized Dominion machines in Puerto Rico, looking for evidence that never emerged.

Team Trump even tasked a cybersecurity contractor to help, but it, too, couldn’t uncover evidence that didn’t exist. Left with little choice, Olsen moved on.

No, I’m just kidding. Olsen seems to have decided instead to incorporate the cybersecurity contractor into his broader conspiracy theory. From the Reuters article: