Barbara K. Olson

Barbara K. Olson, 45, a well-known conservative legal analyst, died fiercely determined, with her wits about her. 
As Olson’s Los Angeles-bound jetliner hurtled instead toward the Pentagon, Olson speed-dialed her husband, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, and told him how terrorists had taken over the plane. 

They would be the last words he would hear from his wife, an author, former congressional lawyer and criminal prosecutor, whose sharp commentary made her a frequent guest on “Larry King Live” and other television talk shows over the last three years. 

The Olsons were a power couple, inviting congressional staffers and Supreme Court justices to their Great Falls home. They also were Republican mainstays: he argued the Florida election case before the U.S. Supreme Court while she helped the Bush team with the legalities of the absentee ballot count. 

“They had a really terrific relationship,” said David Bossie, a former congressional investigator who worked with Barbara Olson, adding that she was “a smart and deliberate strategist.” 

As chief investigative counsel for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1995 and 1996, Barbara Olson looked into the White House travel office firings. She also was the author of two highly critical books of the Clintons. 

Olson graduated from Cardozo Law School in New York, and became a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. Recently, she had been with the law firm of Balch & Bingham, affiliated with the lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers.