The memo said Trump told Olson he would follow through on the plan. The memo appears to be an early sketch of what days later became clear to be Trump’s approach to pressure the Justice Department and a desire to potentially replace its top leadership. Olson also encouraged Trump in the December 28, 2020 memo to replace lawyers in the White House counsel’s office who had strongly opposed efforts by Trump allies such as Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell to take actions such as seizing voting machines. “Task your new White House counsel to determine how the powers of the presidency can be used to ensure that the People receive a fair election count,” Olson wrote in the memo obtained by the Times. “Our small team of lawyers is working on a memorandum that explains exactly what you can do. The media will call this martial law, but… that’s ‘fake news’.” Olson’s call with Trump about how he might try to overturn the 2020 election underscores how Trump has continued to take advice from outsiders about possible steps he could take to prevent his loss long after his own White House lawyers and Justice Department officials told him. there was no evidence of substantial electoral fraud and he had lost the election. About a week after the conversation with Olson in early January, Trump considered replacing his acting attorney general with Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer at the Justice Department who had embraced Trump’s false allegations of voter fraud. He did not follow through after facing Justice Department and White House lawyers who warned the move would trigger mass resignations. It’s unclear how Olson got into Trump’s orbit, and it’s long been a question of how Clark rose to Trump’s mind. Olson is currently representing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has been one of the staunchest supporters of Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, in a lawsuit against the House Select Committee challenging the search for certain information from the his phone bill. Olson did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. In December and January 2020, Trump continued to push the Justice Department to embrace his allegations of fraud. Former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Steven Engel, a former official in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, testified before a House committee Jan. 6 last month that Trump had raised the question of whether the Justice Department would testify election lawsuit in the Supreme Court and sent a draft lawsuit to the Ministry of Justice. “It was a wrongful-day lawsuit that was not something the Department could or — or would pursue,” Engel said. “Someone apparently prepared it for – delivered it to the President and he forwarded it for our review.” In his memo, Olson urged Trump to “order the acting AG to file the lawsuit on behalf of the United States by 5 pm tomorrow.” He added that if the acting attorney general refuses to do so, Trump should replace him with a Senate-confirmed Justice Department official who would. In addition, Olson took aim at the White House counsel’s office, writing that in their conversation he “heard the disgraceful and dismissive attitude of the lawyer from the White House counsel’s office toward you personally.” It’s not clear which White House lawyer Olson is referring to — both former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former Trump White House lawyer Eric Hersman testified in committee testimony Jan. 6 that they were categorically opposed to attempts to subvert the elections. In the memo, Olson encouraged Trump to hire Kurt Olsen in the White House counsel’s office, saying he could bring in additional lawyers to help Trump. “You need a lawyer literally by your side,” William Olson wrote of Kurt Olsen. Curt Olsen, who helped prepare the Texas lawsuit to throw out Biden’s Supreme Court victory, contacted the Justice Department several times in December 2020, requesting a meeting with Rosen and providing a draft complaint to the Supreme Court for to be signed by the Ministry of Justice. according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report last year. “As I said in our call, the President of the United States saw this complaint and asked me last night to personally brief AG Rosen today to discuss filing this lawsuit. I was instructed to report to the President this afternoon after this meeting,” Kurt Olsen wrote on December 29. The January 6 panel issued a subpoena to Kurt Olsen in March. William Olson was not named in the Senate Judiciary Review of the Justice Department lobbying campaign and was not subpoenaed by the House, according to committee releases.
