Records: Fringe Election Deniers Leverage White House Access, Enlist Commerce Department to Target Voting Machines

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, American Oversight released records it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Justice (DOJ) that include internal email exchanges between then-pardon attorney and Weaponization Working Group leader Ed Martin, Arkansas-based election-denial activists Colonel Conrad Reynolds and Will Huff, and top aides to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

As reported by CNN this morning, the records show Wiles, often portrayed as a moderating voice in the White House, played a direct role in connecting election conspiracy theorists with senior administration officials. This follows reports that Wiles echoed false claims about the 2020 election, reportedly telling a private gathering earlier this year, “I think we’re going to find out [President Trump] actually did win” other states in the 2020 election.

At Wiles’ request, her chief of operations introduced Reynolds and Huff to Ed Martin in August 2025. At the time, the Arkansas Board of Election Commissioners had referred Reynolds to the state’s attorney general over allegations he violated state election law — he has since been charged in the matter. Reynolds and Huff co-host a podcast focused heavily on election conspiracy theories and opposition to voting machines.

Huff later sent Martin a slate of proposals for overhauling how states run elections. Among them was a plan to invoke the Commerce Department’s national security authority to force states to abandon voting machines in favor of “hand-marked and hand-counted ballots” ahead of the 2026 midterms. Reynolds and Huff reportedly also raised the proposal during a two-and-a-half hour meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in August 2026.

Neither the White House or Commerce Department, nor Reynolds or Huff, responded to CNN’s request for comment by the time of publication.

“These records show just how deeply election denialism is embedded in the Trump administration,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight. “Susie Wiles may be publicly portrayed as the voice of reason in this White House, but behind the scenes, she played matchmaker, helping to connect fringe election deniers with senior officials. Secretary Lutnick reportedly gave these activists a direct audience as they promoted a plan to use the Commerce Department’s national-security powers to meddle in elections — a troubling sign given his evolving role carrying out the administration’s election agenda. With the midterms approaching, the administration is attempting to expand federal control and impose sweeping changes on state-run elections, creating confusion for voters and election officials. The election deniers aren’t knocking at the door anymore. They’ve been invited inside. Their ideas are being elevated at the highest levels of the White House and increasingly shaping federal election policy.”

On Aug. 19, 2025, Cam Sadler, then a special assistant to the president and chief of operations for Wiles, emailed Huff to introduce him to Martin, writing that “Susie forwarded your meeting request along to me and requested that I connect you with Ed Martin.” Sadler described Martin as the White House’s “Election Integrity czar” who “has his finger on the pulse of our efforts.” In his reply, Huff wrote that “Susie and I spoke about election security and moving forward and she agreed we need to be ready for the 2026 primary elections.”

Martin, Reynolds, and Huff met three days later, on August 22, 2025, at DOJ headquarters. In a follow-up “meeting recap” email to Martin the next day, Huff wrote that the activists had proposed a slate of election procedures for the White House to adopt as official policy — including using hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots, eliminating most mail and absentee voting, and limiting early voting to as little as a single day.

Central to the activists’ pitch, Huff wrote, was a plan to target voting machines using Executive Order 13873 — a Trump-signed edict authorizing the Commerce secretary to restrict the use of technology tied to “foreign adversaries” on national-security grounds. The order, Huff wrote, gives “Sec of Commerce Howard Lutnick” the ability “to revoke the purchase and use of critical infrastructure that contains components from adversarial nations,” which “can immediately force states to move to hand-marked and hand-counted ballots like the President wishes.”

The same email states that Martin, Reynolds, and Huff discussed “using Colonel Reynolds and myself as your conduits to the election officials around the nation,” with Huff writing that this would give the two activists “the authority to talk to officials and advise them on election procedures and practices.”

In a separate email exchange the following day, Reynolds told Martin that, “in response to your request that we develop a plan on how to get Tina into federal custody,” he and Huff had been researching options for a “realistic Course of Action” to do so, and asked to convene a meeting to finalize the plan. The “Tina” in question appears to be Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk convicted on state charges related to a 2020 voting-system security breach. At the time, Martin oversaw the Trump administration’s pardon and clemency process. That same fall, the Trump administration formally requested that Colorado transfer Peters to federal custody even though the federal government had no jurisdiction over Peters’ case since she was convicted on state, not federal, charges.

The activists reportedly went on to secure a meeting with Lutnick himself. In an August 2026 episode of their podcast, Reynolds said Lutnick gave the pair “two-and-a-half-hours of his time” to hear their proposal, calling the meeting “unbelievable” and saying Lutnick “was shocked at what we had to say” and told them “he would be getting on it.”

White House adviser Kurt Olsen, whom Reynolds described as someone he knows “very well,” also reportedly spent months pushing to have the Commerce Department declare components of some voting machines a national-security risk — an effort that, if successful, would have effectively banned the machines from use in more than half of U.S. states. The effort collapsed after a teardown of machines seized in Puerto Rico turned up no evidence of foreign tampering. A Commerce Department spokesperson told reporters in May 2026 that Lutnick “never met or discussed election-integrity issues” with the officials involved and “did not engage in the topic at all.”

CNN’s report also details how the push to restrict voting machines is intensifying. It notes that John Solomon, a conservative commentator who recently joined the White House to help advance the administration’s election agenda, is now among those pressing Lutnick to act. Additionally, the report indicates that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has sent letters to the White House and Justice Department echoing the activists’ rationale about foreign-made components. The story goes on to add that Mullin and Lutnick are working to withhold election funding from states that refuse to adopt the administration’s election agenda.

With consequential midterm elections approaching, the public deserves to know how federal officials are taking cues on election policy from activists who have pushed unsubstantiated claims and, in at least one case, been criminally charged over their own conduct at the polls.