Another prominent Trump loyalist working on a wide-ranging conspiracy investigation in Florida into President Donald Trump’s political foes has abruptly left the probe, according to three people familiar with the matter, marking the latest departure in the high-profile inquiry that has become a central focus for the administration and its allies.
Kurt Olsen — who before being assigned to the so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation had served several months as Trump’s election security czar — tendered his resignation from the Justice Department on Monday, the people said. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Two of the people said Olsen had become frustrated by pressure from Justice Department officials in Washington to increase the pace of the investigation and secure grand jury indictments. The third person said Olsen left after issues arose with his security clearance.
Olsen’s resignation was among a wave of staffing shake-ups the probe has seen in recent days, those people said, as multiple attorneys who had been dispatched to Florida to work on the case returned to previous assignments or left for new ones. Other new lawyers have since joined the case.
All three of the people familiar with those personnel shifts spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the inner workings of an investigation whose future has been uncertain since the departure earlier this month of Joseph DiGenova, another Trump loyalist and former Justice Department appointee who had been leading the effort.
The “grand conspiracy” investigation, being run out of the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami, is among the most ambitious and legally complicated of the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute Trump’s political enemies.
The theory, as officials have described it, is that high-ranking officials from the Obama and Biden administrations engaged in a decades-long, “deep state” conspiracy to violate Trump’s civil rights.
Those efforts, investigators contend, include the FBI and intelligence community investigations of potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, as well as the push under special counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump after his first term for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
Speaking to The Washington Post earlier this month, DiGenova declined to discuss in detail the reasons for his departure, saying in a text message that he still believed in the strength of the case the team was building, but that “time was needed to build those cases” and “people differ on how long that should take.”
He was the second prosecutor overseeing the investigation to step aside. Maria Medetis Long, a veteran national security prosecutor in Miami, left the investigation in April after expressing discomfort with its direction, The Post has reported.
Olsen joined after Meditis’s departure, following a stint as a special White House aide investigating Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Before the second Trump administration, Olsen was among a group of lawyers who had unsuccessfully pushed the Justice Department in 2020 to endorse those false claims.
His resignation Monday was first reported by the Daily Mail.
A Justice Department spokesperson said any suggestions that top officials within the department had pressured DiGenova, Olsen or anyone else involved in the “grand conspiracy” investigation to bring charges before the inquiry was complete were false.
“Leadership has full confidence in the great team of experienced prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida,” the department said in a statement. “Work on this investigation continues, and we are grateful to the talented team of attorneys, which continues to grow, doing the work each day.”
Despite the staffing uncertainty, signs have emerged in recent days that the investigation is moving forward.
Attorneys for former CIA director John Brennan — one of the investigation’s purported targets — said in a recent court filing that he had been subpoenaed to testify next week before a grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida. Several former FBI agents tied to the 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida have also indicated that they have been summoned to offer testimony.
Patrick Marley contributed to this report.
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