A lawyer who’s been closely affiliated with Donald Trump and even met with the former president amid efforts to overturn Biden’s election victory has been “effectively disowned” by his now former law firm, according to a new report from The Daily Beast.
That lawyer, Kurt Olsen, eventually claimed late last year to have been acting at Trump’s personal behest while pressuring the Justice Department to file a lawsuit targeting Biden’s election win. On December 29, Olsen emailed acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, claiming that Trump “directed” him to meet with then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to “discuss” filing a lawsuit similar to one filed by Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton targeting Biden’s wins in certain states. Now, Olsen is facing pushback from his former colleagues, as he appears to have been pushed out of (or left) the firm where he worked.
The Daily Beast explains that, across 18 years, Olsen “worked as a partner at Klafter, Olsen & Lesser, a small New York-based law firm he co-founded. But shortly after he signed on to help Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s failed bid to overturn the 2020 election at the Supreme Court, the firm changed its name and registered a new website—without Olsen’s name in the URL—on Feb. 24.” He’s essentially been “erased,” the publication says. Where a bio for Olsen used to appear on the website, a disclaimer now insists that he “is not affiliated in any way with Klafter Lesser LLP.” Neither the firm nor Olsen returned requests for comment from The Daily Beast, so the exact circumstances of his apparent departure — and whether he left of his own accord or was kicked out — aren’t immediately clear, but his new disconnection from his former law colleagues is obvious.
The lawsuit from Paxton targeting Biden’s win failed, and the Justice Department never filed a lawsuit similar to it, no matter Olsen’s pleas. Olsen’s status within pro-Trump circles initially rose following his appointment by Paxton as a special counsel to help with the eventually failed proceedings, although Rosen — who’s since provided testimony to the Senate regarding Trump-aligned efforts to overturn the election results — never met with the lawyer. Troublingly, though, “Olsen’s name even appeared in a photo of documents” that MyPillow founder/CEO Mike Lindell brought with him to a meeting with Trump late in the then-president’s tenure, according to The Daily Beast. Olsen’s name was “next to figures like Sidney Powell and Kash Patel, as suggestions for who Trump should appoint to senior positions during his quest to stay in power,” the publication adds, showing just how extreme that certain anti-Biden efforts got.
