An election denier who tried to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss is facing scrutiny over his new role in the Justice Department as part of a team investigating the president’s foes. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The Justice Department has placed Kurt Olsen at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, where the Trump ally is part of a probe into a “grand conspiracy.” He was previously overseeing election security at the White House, where he made a referral to the Justice Department that resulted in an FBI search of an election hub near Atlanta in January.The group Free Speech For People, a nonprofit founded in 2010 that focuses on free and fair elections and rooting out corruption in government, sent 11 Democratic lawmakers a letter Tuesday morning urging them to seek Olsen’s removal from the Justice Department. It wrote that Olsen had “driven efforts to access election systems and documents in Fulton County, Georgia, and Puerto Rico.”The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Elections are run by the states. But Trump has recently suggested that federal officials take over some state elections based on accusations of voter fraud he has levied without evidence. The president ended an almost hourlong interview with Jattvibe’s “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker last week after she asked for evidence to back up his statement that the 2020 election was rigged. Free Speech For People wrote in its letter that court records “suggest that Mr. Olsen has access to copies of election system software that were obtained through schemes to compromise voting equipment and take copies of the systems’ software that occurred from 2020 to 2022.” Olsen got involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election after watching video clips online, and eventually was part of an effort led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that ultimately failed. Olsen then tried to pressure Justice Department officials to join efforts to overturn the election. In the end, members of Trump’s Cabinet said there had been no widespread election fraud. Olsen also appeared at an “Election Crime Bureau Summit” alongside Mike Lindell, Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon in 2023.The group sent the letter to lawmakers who have already suggested that Olsen had overstayed as a special government employee to the White House. Congress right now is controlled by Republicans, so it’s not likely to result in Olsen’s removal, but Democrats could launch an investigation and seek to draw more attention to the role he is playing.The group asked Democrats to seek Olsen’s removal and to investigate “the wrongful access of voting equipment and Mr. Olsen’s involvement.” “He’s probably the biggest player who’s not widely known,” Susan Greenhalgh, one of the signatories, told Jattvibe News. The letter is also signed by Free Speech For People leaders John Bonifaz, Ben Clements and Courtney Hostetler. At the Justice Department, Olsen is part of a team headed by 81-year-old Joe diGenova, who worked with Rudy Giuliani’s team in a failed effort to overturn the 2020 election through lawsuits. The Florida investigation includes figures such as Michael Ding, who used to work at a conservative group co-founded by White House official Stephen Miller; and Jake Rodenbiker, a federal prosecutor from North Dakota who is aligned with the state’s Republican governor and had been under consideration for a role on the state’s Supreme Court. Also part of the effort: Rose Marketos, a FBI special agent who tried to investigate an “Italygate” conspiracy theory in 2020 that posited the election was stolen from Trump via Italian satellites, a theory one of Trump’s own Justice Department officials called “pure insanity.”DiGenova said on a right-wing program last year that “Barack Obama … John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, everybody, Lisa Monaco” should appear before a Southern District of Florida grand jury. “This conspiracy against President Trump deserves punishment, not just a lecture,” diGenova said. “People need to go to prison.”Stacey Young, founder of Justice Connection, a group of former DOJ workers, said career prosecutors understand they must follow the facts and law in investigations. “When neither is on the administration’s side, it drags in unscrupulous lawyers from the outside who are willing to break the rules to please the president,” she said.