The Trump administration is full of people who supported his false claims in the 2020 election

President Donald Trump has long spread conspiracy theories about voting designed to explain his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Now that he is president again, Trump has filled his administration with those who have promoted his lies and, in some cases, helped him try to overturn his loss.

These election conspirators who now wield formal powers range from the attorney general to the lawyers filing lawsuits for the Department of Justice. Kurt Olsen, the lawyer who unsuccessfully pushed the Justice Department in 2020 to support the president’s false claims, is now leading a sweeping investigation into voting in that election.

He watches: FBI documents show what led to the Georgia elections office raid

The most dramatic action of this mandate was the seizure of 2020 ballots and election records in late January from Fulton County in Georgia, a Democratic stronghold that includes Atlanta. The county has long been a target of election conspiracy theorists allied with Trump, and the affidavit for the search warrant shows the action was based on 2020 allegations that in many cases were thoroughly investigated.

Election officials across the country, especially those in states politically controlled by Democrats, are bracing for more turmoil during this year’s election, when control of Congress is at stake.

“The movement to reject the election is now embedded in our federal government, making it stronger than ever,” said Joanna Ledgett, CEO of the US Center for Democracy, which tracks those promoting election conspiracy theories. He added, “Trump and his allies are trying to use all the powers of the federal government to undermine the elections, with a focus on the upcoming midterm elections.”

Trump reshaped the federal government as an arm of his personal will, and Attorney General Pam Bondi — who helped try to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss — declared that everyone working at the Justice Department needed to do the president’s demands. Even with all the issues facing him in his second term, from ongoing concerns about the economy to his campaign against immigration, Trump continues to push the false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Some of the people populating his administration, like Bondi, are longtime supporters who continued to help Trump even as he sought to overturn the election. Some played minor roles in supporting false claims about the 2020 presidential election. Still others promoted conspiracy theories, often fantastical or debunked, that helped convince millions of Republicans that Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him.