A lawyer pushing the baseless and proven-false claim of massive fraud in the 2020 presidential election urged then-president Donald Trump to overturn his loss through ways that would be considered “martial law.” A memo was pushed that shows attorney William Olson proposing measures for Trump to take to cling to power.
Olson proposed Trump replace the acting attorney general if he refused to contest the vote in the Supreme Court, and name a new White House counsel to identify powers that Trump could use “to ensure a fair election count.”
The proposal by Olson seems to suggest that these powers included ordering “sampling from lists of registered voters.”
Olson wrote that “our little band of lawyers” was working on a memo to explain what exactly Trump could do.
“The media will call this martial law,” Olson wrote, “but… that is ‘fake news’ — a concept with which you are well familiar.”
It was dated Dec 28, 2020 — after he had lost, and before the Jan 6 insurrection on the Capitol to try and stop the peaceful transition of power.
The memo reveals for the first time Olson’s role in efforts by right-wing individuals outside of the White House to convince Trump to take different routes to overturn the presidential election, efforts which were opposed by the Justice Department leaders and White House lawyers.
Olson works as a lawyer in a Virginia suburb of DC. He was part of a legal team of outside right-wing people, including Mike Lindell; the MyPillow CEO.
Olson’s memo came ten days after there was a six hour, infamously heated meeting in the White House. In the “unhinged” meeting, aides and outside agents convinced Trump to keep pressing his baseless claim of election fraud. White House staffers urged him to concede.
But Trump sided with the outside advisers, deciding to continue pushing the false theories in hopes of overturning the legitimate election results.
Olson’s memo shows that Trump remained open to extreme proposals aimed at keeping him in office.
Olson said that the time to act was short and about to run out.
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