The facts
A lawyer who backed President Donald Trump's false 2020 election claims has resigned from the Justice Department's so-called "grand conspiracy" probe, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. Kurt Olsen is the second lawyer to quit the Florida-based investigation, which is trying to establish that former government officials conspired against Trump.
His exit comes just weeks after Joseph diGenova, the 81-year-old former Reagan-era U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who had been leading the probe, resigned earlier this month without bringing a single criminal case.
The yearlong investigation has been a mess from the start. Last April, a lead national security prosecutor on the Brennan case was replaced after raising questions about the strength of the case. Days later, diGenova was sworn in. The AP describes the probe as pursuing an "ill-defined right-wing theory" of a conspiracy against Trump, moving in fits and starts.
Investigators have been looking at the intelligence assessment that Russia sought to aid Trump's 2016 campaign and the classified-documents investigation at Mar-a-Lago, demanding testimony from officials involved in both as they search for any signs of a potential conspiracy to deprive Trump of his rights.
Olsen's role came into focus earlier this month when former CIA Director John Brennan's attorney revealed that Olsen discussed a subpoena compelling Brennan to testify before a Fort Pierce grand jury on Oct. 25, and that Olsen told him Brennan remains a "target" of a narrower false statements investigation.
Olsen was an odd choice for the job. The AP notes his prominence as an election denier raised his profile in Trump's orbit, but his lack of experience as a Justice Department prosecutor made him an unconventional pick. Before joining the department, he served as Trump's White House director of election security and integrity. In 2020 he unsuccessfully pushed the Justice Department to back Trump's false claims. He helped Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's longshot bid to get the Supreme Court to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 win, and he represented Kari Lake in her attempt to overturn her 2022 Arizona governor's race loss. Arizona courts sanctioned Olsen for making false statements in that case.
Our take
So the Justice Department spent a year hunting for a criminal conspiracy against Donald Trump and the only conspiracy it uncovered is that its own prosecutors keep fucking fleeing the building. DiGenova, an 81-year-old man who spent years publicly claiming the president was the victim of an intelligence community conspiracy, walked away without filing a single charge like a total cunt. Now Olsen has quit too. No cases. No charges. Two lawyers gone, what a pair of absolute fucktards. And look at who was running this thing – Olsen got into the Trump orbit as an election denier, had no prosecutor experience, then got sanctioned by Arizona courts for making false statements like a lying prick. That same guy then turned around and told John Brennan he was a 'target' of a false statements investigation, talk about a bullshit job. The probe was chasing an 'ill-defined right-wing theory' that the FBI and the intelligence community conspired against Trump. A year of subpoenas and grand jury threats later, the grandest conspiracy on record is the prosecutors conspiring to update their resumes while getting paid to shit all over taxpayer time. This clown car of a probe crashed into a dumpster fire and that's still being overly generous. One prosecutor got replaced for questioning the case strength, another joined despite lacking experience – it's like they wanted to assemble a team of court jesters. Olsen pushing for Texas AG Ken Paxton’s Supreme Court case to overturn Biden's win? What a complete and utter piece of shit. His involvement reeks of political hackery. Who greenlit this grifter? The whole operation stinks like rotting garbage, and if you're surprised it ended in failure, you haven't been paying attention to these clowns. They can't even fake a functioning investigation, let alone actually find something worth prosecuting. That's what happens when you put lipstick on a pig – it still looks like a pig's ass. The DOJ should be ashamed of this dumpster fire, but let's be real, they're probably too busy polishing their halos to care. ZERO CHARGES, TWO QUITTERS indeed – that's the legacy of this farce, a monument to incompetence and delusion. What's next? Hiring a reality TV star as a forensic accountant?
