The decision to provide some of the government’s most sensitive spy material to Olsen is unusual, given that he has no known experience working with the U.S. spy community and only joined the Trump administration as a short-term special government employee in October 2025. Special government employees are supposed to work no more than 130 days during any period of 365 days, suggesting his time at the White House could end soon.

The first person said that Olsen has passed a background check and a polygraph exam. It is not clear how close Olsen is to completing his report on the 2020 elections.

Intelligence analysis is supposed to be nonpartisan, and it appears Olsen’s views on electoral fraud in prior U.S. elections are so deeply held that even some people close to the president question his ability to evaluate the material shared with him.

“This guy has no background” in intelligence, said the second person, a close Trump ally. Olsen “will find some super classified report, say it’s evidence of fraud, but really it’s just completely out of context.”

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Olsen rose to prominence by working closely with Trump to undermine the results of the 2020 election under the slogan “Stop the Steal.” He urged several DOJ officials that year to file a complaint to the Supreme Court scrutinizing Trump’s loss, and even called the president multiple times during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol