Nicolai Haugsted
Trump’s investigation into his old enemies appears to be having trouble keeping the investigators.
Donald Trump’s Justice Department has spent roughly a year trying to determine whether some of the investigations that followed him through his first presidency were actually pieces of something much bigger.
So far, prosecutors have produced subpoenas, grand jury activity and plenty of attention — but no criminal charges.
Now the people tasked with building the case are increasingly becoming part of the story themselves.
Kurt Olsen, a Trump ally who had been working on the sprawling Florida investigation into an alleged conspiracy against the president, resigned from the Justice Department on Monday. His departure follows the resignation of Joseph diGenova, another longtime Trump ally who had been brought in to lead the effort.
Reports suggest several other attorneys have also left the team, although accounts differ sharply over the number. Some reports put the figure as high as seven or eight, while others suggest roughly four departures.
Washington Post reporting also describes multiple attorneys moving into or out of the investigation rather than a straightforward exodus of eight prosecutors.
Another Trump loyalist walks away
Olsen was hardly an obvious ideological skeptic of the president.
He supported Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election result and previously served as the White House director of election security and integrity before joining the Florida investigation.
His resignation therefore adds another awkward personnel problem to a probe designed to investigate whether former Obama- and Biden-era officials illegally conspired against Trump.
According to the Daily Beast, people familiar with the matter said Olsen had grown frustrated over pressure from Justice Department leadership in Washington to move faster and obtain indictments before the November 3 midterm elections. Other reporting has offered differing explanations for his departure, and the Justice Department denies improperly pressuring the prosecution team.
Former federal prosecutor and legal analyst Joyce Vance reacted to the reported timing pressure with a warning.
“If true, that would violate long-standing DOJ policy about taking overt steps so close to an election,” she wrote.
His predecessor wanted more time too
Olsen’s departure looks considerably less isolated after what happened earlier this month.
Joseph diGenova resigned on September 10 after being brought into the Justice Department specifically to oversee the investigation.
DiGenova remained publicly supportive of the underlying case after leaving, but his explanation pointed directly toward disagreement over how quickly prosecutors could reasonably proceed.
“Time was needed to build those cases,” he said, adding that “people differ on how long that should take.”
DiGenova had previously served as US attorney for the District of Columbia under Ronald Reagan and later became a prominent Trump ally.
His exit left Olsen playing a larger role in the investigation. Less than three weeks later, Olsen is gone too.
Prosecutors reportedly pushed back
Behind the departures sits a broader dispute over how the investigation should be conducted.
According to the Daily Mail account cited in the original reporting, Justice Department officials in Washington began scrutinizing the work of prosecutors before giving instructions about the grand jury process.
“They started asking questions, and then they started giving orders to line attorneys about how to conduct the grand jury,” a source said.
“The attorneys revolted, and then objections were made to the department, and then that’s when everything exploded.”
No public evidence establishes that those allegations accurately describe every departure, and the Justice Department disputes the suggestion that the investigation is collapsing.
One very big theory and zero charges so far
Prosecutors are pursuing what has become known as the “grand conspiracy” investigation from South Florida.
Broadly speaking, investigators are examining whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials illegally worked together against Trump across separate episodes stretching back years.
Those episodes include scrutiny of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the federal investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Former CIA director John Brennan has received a grand jury subpoena, while former FBI employees connected to the classified-documents investigation have also been summoned.
Russia did interfere in the 2016 presidential election, according to US intelligence assessments and subsequent investigations. The Florida probe is examining a separate and much broader theory that officials involved in scrutiny of Trump illegally conspired against him.
No charges have emerged from the roughly year-old investigation.
DOJ insists the show is still on
Justice Department officials are pushing back against the picture of a prosecution team coming apart.
“The department’s work on this investigation continues, and we are grateful to the talented team of attorneys, which continues to grow, doing the work each day,” a DOJ spokesperson told the Daily Beast.
Recent grand jury activity supports at least part of that statement: subpoenas are still being issued and the investigation remains active despite the departures.
Accounts from inside the investigation, however, paint a considerably less cheerful picture.
“This case was initiated to make the president and the public think something is happening down there, when in reality, it’s not,” one source told the Daily Mail, according to the supplied report.
That assessment remains the anonymous source’s characterization rather than an established description of the investigation.
