Around 5 p.m. on Christmas Day 2020, while many Americans were celebrating with family, President Donald J. Trump was at his Sea-to-Lake home in Palm Beach, Florida, by phone. with a little-known conservative lawyer. who was encouraging his attempts to revoke the election, according to a note the lawyer later wrote documenting the call.
Attorney William J. Olson was promoting several extreme ideas to the president. Mr. Olson later admitted that part of his plan could be considered a “martial law” statement and that another aspect could invite comparisons with Watergate. The plan included the manipulation of the Justice Department and the dismissal of acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen, according to the December 28 note from Mr. Olson, entitled “Preserving Constitutional Order.”
“Our small band of lawyers is working on a memorandum that explains exactly what you can do,” Olson wrote in his note, obtained by The New York Times, which he described as “privileged and confidential” and sent to the president. “The media will call this martial law,” he wrote, adding that “this is ‘fake news’.”
The document highlights the hitherto uninformed role of Mr. Olson in advising Mr. Trump, as the president was increasingly turning to far-right figures outside the White House to look for options that many of his official advisers had told him were impossible or illegal. in an effort to cling to power.
The involvement of a person like Mr. Olson, who now represents conspiracy theorist and CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, points out how the system that would normally isolate a president from rogue actors operating outside official channels had broken down a few weeks after the 2020 election. .
This left Mr. Trump in direct contact with people promoting conspiracy theories or questionable legal ideas, telling him not only what he wanted to hear, but also that they, not the officials who advised him, were the only ones who could to trust.
“In our long conversation earlier this week, I was able to hear the embarrassing and contemptuous attitude of the White House Attorney’s Office attorney toward you personally, but most importantly toward the same Office of the President of the United States, “wrote Mr. Olson. Mr. Trump. “This is unacceptable.”
It was not immediately clear how Mr. Olson, who practices law in Washington, DC and Virginia, came into the orbit of Mr. Trump. Mr. Olson previously worked with Republican super PACs and promoted a conspiracy theory that Vice President Kamala Harris is not eligible to be vice president, falsely claiming that she is not a natural citizen of the United States. He and his firm have long represented Gun Owners of America, a defense group.
According to his website, which shows a photograph of him shaking hands with President Richard M. Nixon, Mr. Olson was a White House inmate in 1971.
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His 2020 note was written 10 days after one of the most dramatic meetings ever held at Trump’s White House, during which three of the White House president’s advisers competed — at one point almost physically — with external actors to influence Trump. At that meeting, on December 18, attorney Sidney Powell and Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, lobbied for Mr. Trump would seize the voting machines and appoint special advisor to Ms. Powell to investigate wild and unfounded election fraud claims. , even when White House lawyers fought.
But the document suggests that even after his aides had won that skirmish at the Oval Office, Mr. Trump continued to seek extreme legal advice that went against the recommendations of the Justice Department and the attorney’s office.
And the note indicates that Mr. Trump acted following outside advice. At one point, he refers to the president who urged Mr. Olson to contact the acting Attorney General so that the Department of Justice would lend its credibility to Mr. Olson’s legal efforts. Trump to invalidate the election results.
A person familiar with the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said the committee was aware that Mr. Olson was in contact with Mr. Trump and that he was exploring the role of Mr. Olson to push plans to overthrow. the 2020 elections.
Mr. Olson did not respond to requests for comment.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the former president’s relationship with Olson.
According to his note, Mr. Olson was arguing with Mr. Trump the idea that the Justice Department would intercede before the Supreme Court to reverse his electoral defeat.
The court had refused to hear a case that Mr. Trump in Texas had filed challenging the results of the Pennsylvania election, saying the plaintiffs had no legitimacy.
Mr. Olson told Mr. Trump who believed the Justice Department “will do nothing but continue to run out of the clock.”
“While the time to act was short when we talked on Christmas Day, time is about to run out,” he wrote.
It was unclear which White House attorney, Mr. Olson, described it as contempt for his note. At that time, White House attorney Pat A. Cipollone; Patrick Philbin, his deputy; and another lawyer who did not work for the attorney’s office, Eric Herschmann, worked together to push through some of the strangest ideas that were recommended. Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Herschmann had taken leading roles during the December 18 White House meeting to counter Ms. Powell and Mr. Flynn.
“The feeling I had was that not only was he not offering you any option, he was there to make sure you had no choice,” Olson wrote, referring to the unnamed White House lawyer. . “But you have options.”
Among which Mr. Olson mentioned when he spoke to Mr. Trump on the involvement of the Justice Department, there was Mark Martin, the former president of the North Carolina Supreme Court. White House officials believed at the time that Mr. Martin was brought in by Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff.
Mr. Olson urged Mr. Trump to hire another lawyer, Kurt Olsen, who had worked in the Texas case.
“When I sent an email to Molly on Saturday morning,” Mr. wrote. Olson, referring to Mr. Trump, “We started acting on your question about our team reviewing the Texas complaint in what could be the first draft of a U.S. complaint. The lawyers I’ve been working with took on this task. , and now we have a draft that we could present to you to review, and you to Mr. Rosen for editing, improving and archiving. ”
In his note, Mr. Olson explained that during his discussions, he had told Mr. Trump who had followed the president’s suggestion to call Mr. Rosen a few hours earlier to ask the interim Attorney General to file a lawsuit to try to block Joseph R. Victoria from the Biden Jr. Electoral College.
Mr. Trump, based on Mr. Trump’s note. Olson, was aware that Mr. Rosen was walking slowly at his request. The lawsuit was never filed; Mr Rosen testified last month before the Jan. 6 commission that doing so was outside the bounds of the law.
A spokesman for Mr. Rosen said he did not remember talking to Mr. Olson, however, that it was true that the acting attorney general was against filing any lawsuit to interfere with the election results.
At the time of the note, Mr. Trump had marched to Mar-a-Lago, but Olson encouraged him to return to Washington to fight the election results from his perch at the White House. Mr. Trump did so shortly after, working during the holidays to challenge the election results.
“I don’t think you can do what needs to be done from Florida,” Mr. Olson to the president. “And I would send a message about your commitment to the task, leave Mar-a-Lago to take over the White House. I invite you to come back as soon as it can be fixed.”
Mr. Olson encouraged Mr. Trump to fire or reassign Mr. Rosen if he did not follow plans to use the Justice Department to challenge the court elections, even though Mr. Olson acknowledged that this action would have negative news coverage.
“This step will likely generate a thousand stories by making an analogy with the‘ Saturday Night Massacre ’in 1973, when President Nixon ordered AG Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox as a special lawyer investigating Watergate,” he wrote .
Mr. Olson also urged changes to the White House Attorney’s Office. He wrote that a new White House lawyer should take steps to ensure a “fair election count,” although he admitted that the media would see it as a “martial law.”