Election-Denial Summit Pushes for Federal Takeover of Midterms

At a February 19 Washington, D.C., summit organized by Michael Flynn, prominent election-deniers and several federal officials pressed Trump to use extraordinary powers to take over the midterms, circulating a draft executive order to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines. The gathering, which included White House lawyer Kurt Olsen and DHS election-integrity official Heather Honey, underscores a growing, more organized push to reshape elections from within government, prompting concerns among experts about eroding guardrails—though White House aides say attendance doesn’t mean endorsement of a national emergency.