Less than two weeks from the election, Donald Trump is speaking to one of the lawyers who helped him contest the 2020 election results. The New York Times reports that Trump has been in touch with Kurt Olsen, who spoke to Trump several times over the phone on January 6, 2021 while a violent mob attacked the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the election results for Trump. Olsen later faced court sanctions in 2022 for making baseless claims about voting machines in Arizona.Olsen has reportedly told Trump this time around that the former president should take legal action to make sure voting machine data from Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia is preserved, according to the Times. Trump reportedly encouraged this line of action.Trump and Olsen first met in late 2020, as the then-president was talking to anyone offering to help him stay in power. Olsen later joined the Texas attorney general’s doomed appeal to the Supreme Court to stop Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from certifying Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. When that failed, he drafted a civil complaint based on the lawsuit, and tried to bring it in person to the acting U.S. attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen. Justice Department officials found the complaint flawed, and said it didn’t seem viable. In 2022, Olsen represented Kari Lake in her failed attempt to overturn her loss in the Arizona race for governor. In July, Olsen was hit with an ethics complaint from the States United Democracy Center and Lawyers Defending American Democracy, who asked the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission and the District of Columbia’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel to investigate Olsen’s election denial activities.“Kurt Olsen has abused his law license to spread lies about our elections in the courtroom time and time again, and his pattern of unethical conduct shows he’s not going to stop,” said Gillian Feiner, Senior Counsel at the States United Democracy Center, at the time.The fact that Trump is seeking out someone the Times describes as a “fringe figure” suggests that he is worried enough about the coming election to attempt the same dangerous schemes as he did in 2020. None of Olsen’s schemes worked then, but Trump still has the ability to whip up confusion and incite an angry mob. Plus, he now has his supporters in important election posts across the country. The former president still hasn’t faced any consequences for his actions four years ago. What is he willing to try this time?
https://newrepublic.com/post/187450/trump-2020-lawyer-overturn-election