Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) receives the report from his Religious Liberty Commission in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 26, 2026.
President Donald Trump's attorney general blew his top during a Wednesday press conference when asked about the reported resignation of attorney Kurt Olsen. Olsen is controversial because he helped Trump in his insurrection after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election to then-Vice President Joe Biden. He left the position, according to early reports, because he struggled to obtain a security clearance.
According to Mediaite's Tom Durante, a reporter asked Blanche, “Attorney General Blanche, if I could just ask you, the second prosecutor — high-profile — has resigned in this so-called grand conspiracy case against President Trump, involving President Trump down in Florida. What’s your reaction to that, how this case is going? Joe DiGenova has left. Kurt Olsen’s left. Where does this case stand?”
Blanche told the reporter, "Well I think the most meaningful answer in your question is the fact that your question is something that is not true. Just because somebody reports in this room that somebody resigns doesn’t make it true. Kurt Olson has not resigned, so the fact that there is whoever the media gets to talk to you and then runs on it without doing any real investigation, is reflective of the media and nothing else."
The cabinet official then added, "But I think that it’s not true. By the way, Investigations, we lose prosecutors on the time and they leave for all kinds of reasons, so our investigations don’t stop when somebody leaves and it doesn’t matter the investigation. So that, like every investigation in the Department of Justice, that one is well-staffed, but the mere fact that the media says something is true at the risk of saying to an audience that knows it better than most, and it doesn’t make it so."
When the reporter asked if Olsen is still employed, Blanche responded, "How many times do I have to say he did not resign? Yes, he is still employed. Like there is news and again, my frustration is there is an incredible amount of fake news, right? The president talks about and that happens just not to be true.”
After the reporter asked if Olsen has left the case on which he was working, Blanche told him “Did he leave the investigation? He’s still employed exactly where he was before, and the fact that is on them, but it doesn’t make it true.”
In February, Politico's John Sakellariadis reported that Olsen had been provided "highly classified material" despite lacking a security clearance and his role in helping Trump steal the 2020 election.
"Every time he hits a roadblock, he just calls POTUS," one of Politico's sources told Sakellariadis about Olsen. Even though Olsen has no has no background or experience in intelligence, he was granted the "unusual" access because, as a CIA spokesperson told Sakellariadis, "the President has asked Mr. Olsen to look at intelligence related to the 2020 election and the agency is ensuring that he has the access necessary to do his work."
