Kurt Olsen, an attorney who sought to overturn Donald Trump's 2020 election loss, has been placed at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida as part of a team investigating what the Justice Department has described as a "grand conspiracy" against the president.
The Justice Department placement puts Olsen on a team headed by Joe diGenova, an 81-year-old former federal prosecutor who worked with Rudy Giuliani's legal effort to challenge the 2020 election results. DiGenova's wife, 84-year-old attorney Victoria Toensing, is also part of the investigation team.
Olsen previously oversaw election security at the White House, where he made a referral that resulted in an FBI search of an election hub near Atlanta in January. He was involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election after watching video clips online and was part of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's failed lawsuit seeking to invalidate results in multiple states.
What the Right Is Saying
DiGenova has spoken publicly about the Florida investigation on right-wing programs, saying that figures including former Obama administration officials "should appear before a Southern District of Florida grand jury."
"This conspiracy against President Trump deserves punishment, not just a lecture," DiGenova said last year. "People need to go to prison."
Olsen has not responded publicly to the criticism. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The investigation team also includes Michael Ding, who previously worked at a conservative group co-founded by White House official Stephen Miller; Jake Rodenbiker, a federal prosecutor from North Dakota aligned with that state's Republican governor who had been under consideration for a role on the state Supreme Court; and Rose Marketos, an FBI special agent who investigated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
What the Left Is Saying
Free Speech For People, a nonprofit focused on free and fair elections founded in 2010, sent a letter Tuesday to 11 Democratic lawmakers urging them to seek Olsen's removal from the Justice Department. The group wrote that Olsen had "driven efforts to access election systems and documents in Fulton County, Georgia, and Puerto Rico."
"He's probably the biggest player who's not widely known," said Susan Greenhalgh, one of the letter's signatories.
The organization argued in its letter that court records "suggest that Mr. Olsen has access to copies of election system software that were obtained through schemes to compromise voting equipment and take copies of the systems' software that occurred from 2020 to 2022." The letter called for Democrats to investigate "the wrongful access of voting equipment and Mr. Olsen's involvement."
The group also sent letters previously suggesting Olsen had overstayed as a special government employee at the White House. While Congress is controlled by Republicans, making removal unlikely, Democratic lawmakers could launch investigations and seek to draw attention to his role.
Stacey Young, founder of Justice Connection, a group of former DOJ workers, said career prosecutors understand they must follow the facts and law in investigations. "When neither is on the administration's side, it drags in unscrupulous lawyers from the outside who are willing to break the rules to please the president," she said.
What the Numbers Show
The Southern District of Florida investigation is one of several Justice Department probes announced since Trump took office. The administration has said it is pursuing investigations into what it characterizes as government misconduct targeting Trump allies during previous administrations.
Elections are administered by states under the U.S. constitutional framework, though Trump has recently suggested federal officials could take over some state elections based on accusations of voter fraud he has levied without evidence.
Trump ended an almost hourlong interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker last week amid questions about evidence to back up his statement that the 2020 election was rigged. Members of Trump's own Cabinet from his first term said there had been no widespread election fraud.
The Bottom Line
The placement of Olsen represents a continuation of efforts by Trump allies who challenged the 2020 election results now holding positions within the Justice Department itself. The scrutiny from groups like Free Speech For People highlights concerns about officials with histories of election denialism working on law enforcement investigations.
Congressional Democrats face limited options given Republican control, but could pursue oversight hearings or public pressure campaigns. What happens next may depend on whether the Southern District investigation produces charges and how those cases are framed publicly by the administration.