![]() ![]() ![]() “Somebody obviously prepared it to the - handed it to the President and he forwarded it on for our review.” “It was a meritless lawsuit that was not something that the Department could or - or would bring,” Engel said. Former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and Stephen Engel, a former official in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, testified before the House January 6 committee last month that Trump had raised the question of whether DOJ would file an election lawsuit with the Supreme Court and had a draft lawsuit sent to the Justice Department. In December and January 2020, Trump continued to pressure the Justice Department to embrace his claims of fraud. Olson didn’t immediately respond to a request from CNN for comment. Olson currently represents MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who has been one of the most vocal proponents of Trump’s false claims of election fraud, in a lawsuit against the House select committee, challenging their pursuit of some information from his phone account. It’s not clear how Olson got into Trump’s orbit, and it’s long been a question of how Clark rose to prominence in Trump’s mind. He didn’t follow through after being confronted by DOJ and White House lawyers who warned the move would cause mass resignations. Olson’s call with Trump about how he could try to overturn the 2020 election underscores how Trump continued to receive advice from outside actors about potential steps he could take to avert his loss, well after his own White House counsel lawyers and Justice Department officials had told him there was no evidence of substantial election fraud and he had lost the election.Ībout 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 election fraud claims. The media will call this martial law, but … that is ‘fake news.’” “Our little band of lawyers is working on a memorandum that explains exactly what you can do. “Task your new White House Counsel with identifying 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. January 6 committee's investigation stirs up fresh revelations ahead of last planned hearing (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Liz Cheney (R-WY) preside over a House Select Committee hearing to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 13, 2022. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), (L) Chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, and Vice Chairwoman Rep. Olson also encouraged Trump in the December 28, 2020, memo to replace lawyers in the White House counsel’s office who had staunchly opposed the efforts of Trump allies like Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell to take actions like seizing voting machines. The memo appears to be an early sketch of what days later became clear was Trump’s approach to pressuring the Justice Department and a wish to potentially replace its top leadership. The memo said Trump told Olson he would follow up on the plan. In the memo, Olson wrote that he urged Trump to enlist the Justice Department to directly intercede in his legal efforts at the Supreme Court – and to consider replacing his acting attorney general if he would not do so. The Times reported on a previously undisclosed memo written by conservative lawyer William Olson, which documented a phone call Olson had with Trump on Christmas Day in 2020. That included hearing directly from a little-known conservative lawyer advising Trump to take steps that effectively could be called declaration of “martial law,” the New York Times reported Saturday, in another instance of fringe actors having pushed the President to take extreme steps after the 2020 election. ![]() Then-President Donald Trump in December 2020 was entertaining fringe legal advice from a wider group of outside lawyers than was previously known as he sought to block the 2020 election result. ![]()
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