Matt Olsen is the Assistant Attorney General for National Security. In that capacity, he leads the Department of Justice’s mission to combat terrorism, espionage, cyber crime, and other threats to the national security.
From 2011 to 2014, Olsen served as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Prior to leading NCTC, Olsen was the General Counsel for the National Security Agency.
For 18 years, Olsen worked at the Department of Justice as a career attorney and in a number of leadership positions. He served as an Associate Deputy Attorney General for national security and was Special Counselor to the Attorney General. In 2006, Olsen helped establish the National Security Division and served as the first career Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
For over a decade, Olsen was a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. He also served as Special Counsel to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, supporting the post-9/11 transformation of the FBI. Olsen began his public service career as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
Olsen was a law clerk to the Honorable Norma Holloway Johnson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He graduated from Harvard Law School and the University of Virginia.
