Kurt Olsen, key Trump 2020 election denier, departs Justice Department ‘grand conspiracy’ investigation
Attorney Kurt Olsen during his opening statement in Kari Lake's election challenge trial on May 17
By Hannah Rabinowitz, Tierney Sneed, CNN
(CNN) — A lawyer who aided President Donald Trump’s 2020 election reversal schemes has left the sweeping federal investigation into the president’s foes, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
The lawyer, Kurt Olsen, departed the so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation, the person said. The source initially told CNN that Olsen had quit his job at the department entirely, but later said on Wednesday that an email Olsen sent to Justice Department leadership was mistakenly interpreted as a resignation.
Olsen — a key election denier — spent the last several months working on the investigation from Miami-based US attorney’s office. He is the second high-profile departure from the investigation, which is probing the president’s allegations that former government officials conspired against him.
Olsen had made more of a public splash in his first role in the administration, working in a temporary capacity in the White House as Trump’s director of election security and integrity. There, he was involved in reviews looking at the president’s 2020 loss in key states and at election machinery.
Olsen — who spent much of his career in securities litigation — had no experience with election law before jumping into the efforts to challenge Trump’s 2020 presidential election defeat. According to congressional testimony from a top DOJ official during the first Trump administration, Olsen pressed the Justice Department to file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court challenging the election results in battleground states.
He went on to assist Trump allies in their bids to challenge elections on dubious grounds, including in a 2022 Arizona lawsuit that led to sanctions against him from the state’s Supreme Court.
During his tenure at the White House, Olsen made the referral that led to the FBI’s seizure of 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, and he also played a role in the Justice Department’s move to subpoena records related to the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Additionally, he was involved in a review of voting equipment in Puerto Rico. When the cybersecurity firm hired by the Trump administration to conduct the assessment failed to find evidence that the machines had been tampered with in a way that changed votes, Olsen allegedly spread false claims that the firm was tied to Trump’s liberal opponents, according to a declaration written by the firm’s head that was obtained by CNN.
CNN’s attempts to reach Olsen have been unsuccessful.
Olsen moved this year from White House to the Justice Department, where his full remit was not publicly known. He was, however, referenced in court filings this month submitted by attorneys for former CIA Director John Brennan, a Trump foe. Brennan’s attorneys said that they had communications with Olsen in which he indicated Brennan was a target in a false statements probe.
Update: This story was initially published on Sept. 28 and was updated Wednesday to reflect that the source said Olsen’s email to Justice Department leadership was initially misinterpreted as a resignation.
CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Josh Campbell contributed to this report.
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