U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he speaks to reporters onboard Air Force One, on travel from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., February 16, 2026. REUTERS Elizabeth Frantz
The Atlantic reports fringe nuts spreading election denier nonsense are now scattering their lies from inside the system thanks to President Donald Trump’s hiring practices.
Trump, an election denier himself who still claims without evidence that he was cheated out of his victory in 2020, has hired people like election denier Clay Parikh to push debunked election claims from within the systems he rails against as a special government employee in the Trump administration.
The search-warrant affidavit that allowed the FBI to seize election materials in Georgia cited an analysis by Parikh. And last fall, Parikh began a contract with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office that made him a player in the state’s process for certifying election equipment.
“He boasts of access to the Wyoming secretary of state, who, he said on Rumble, has invited him to participate in an online presentation with residents. And at 1:01 a.m. on Christmas Day, Trump made Parikh internet famous when he reposted a video of the 63-year-old testifying in court that election equipment could be infiltrated remotely,” reports the Atlantic.
Attorney Kurt Olsen is another fringe character that Trump brought on last fall to investigate the 2020 election. Olsen pushed debunked theories for years before working for Trump. Now he feed a trough of nonsense to support the seizure of the Georgia ballots. And the Atlantic reports Olsen and other Trump officials are holding extensive meetings with senior members of Trump’s politicized Justice Department to further delegitimize U.S. elections, according to four anonymous sources speaking with the Atlantic.
“So many people are pressing debunked and unsubstantiated election theories from within the government that their presence has become a feature of the system,” reports the Atlantic. “They range from those with immense power — including the president — all the way down to local officials. Others are investigating them. In Riverside County, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican who is running for governor, seized about 650,000 ballots and other election materials in March after local activists alleged malfeasance when California voters last year overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional map in favor of Democrats.”
Even National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard has accused U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence personnel of participating in a “years-long coup” against Trump, and she was at the raid in Fulton County. Gabbard’s team also claimed to have found voting machines in Puerto Rico with security weaknesses without evidence the machines were actually tampered with.
And MAGA has “already won its war against American elections,” in some ways, reports the Atlantic.
“Confidence that a person’s state or local government will run a free and fair election is slipping. Trump’s administration is filled with election skeptics; federal investigations into 2020 are under way; and conspiracy theorists who were once marginalized now run some local election offices,” the Atlantic reports. “Several officials who have been integral to running fair and transparent elections in past cycles told us they are already burned out—just as the deniers are getting started.”
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