After news outlets reported Kurt Olsen’s departure from the Justice Department, Olsen contacted the department to say that he had only intended to step down from the grand jury investigation of Obama-era officials and did not mean to leave his job. Read more here.
Kurt Olsen, an election denier who attempted to overturn the 2020 election results in favor of President Trump, has resigned from the Justice Department, sources familiar with his departure told CBS News on Monday.
Olsen had been assigned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, where he was working on the “grand conspiracy” investigation targeting Obama- and Biden-era officials, which has so far not resulted in any charges.
CBS News has asked Olsen for comment.
Earlier this month, Joe diGenova, the prosecutor who was tapped by Attorney General Todd Blanche, also resigned amid tensions with senior Justice Department officials over how the cases were being managed and their pace.
Olsen was previously working out of the White House as a “Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity,” the FBI said. In 2020, Olsen was an attorney working with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to urge the Supreme Court to overturn the election results.
CBS News reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
In 2022, Olsen was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 select committee, which was investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election. The subpoena alleged that Olsen “contacted various high-level officials at the Department of Justice” at the president’s direction to discuss filing challenges to the election results. The committee said Olsen spoke multiple times with Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
Olsen made the Fulton County election case referral to the FBI, prompting agents to execute a search warrant earlier this year. They seized dozens of boxes of ballots and other materials from the 2020 election, an FBI affidavit revealed.
Olsen has also made several other 2020 election-related referrals to the Justice Department, according to a source with direct knowledge.
CBS News has previously reported that law enforcement veterans have been expressing deep concerns that the Trump Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Brennan and others is being systematically stacked with politically motivated personnel who are intent on a partisan indictment.
Olsen is one of several prosecutors in recent days to leave the team working on the grand conspiracy case, several sources said.
One of those sources, however, said that some of the attorneys who came in from out of state were working there on a temporary basis and that those assignments had come to an end, and those attorneys are returning to their home offices. The Justice Department has since hired two new former prosecutors to join the investigative team, a source added.
