Joseph diGenova, the MAGA loyalist who oversaw a Florida-based investigation that was widely perceived to be a personal vengeance mission against President Donald Trump’s political enemies, quit Thursday afternoon.
DiGenova, who was sworn in as counselor to the attorney general in April, sent the Department of Justice a letter at 3 p.m. informing top officials of his decision, he told The Washington Sun.
“It was an honor and a privilege to serve the president and the department,” he said, declining to elaborate on why he stepped down.
Among the many targets of the inquest was former CIA director John Brennan, who was being criminally investigated over his handling of the Obama administration’s probe into Trump-Russia connections that muddied the 2016 presidential election and followed Trump throughout his first term, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
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That grand jury investigation, although cloaked in secrecy, appeared to be a frustrated effort that was briefly pursued in Washington but eventually relocated to South Florida, where top DOJ officials could count on a loyal Trump appointee, U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones, to be in charge of the case.
The investigation was specifically based in Fort Pierce, where the local federal district court keeps a single judge at a faraway outpost: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, also a Trump appointee regarded by the White House to be politically amenable.
After a relatively quiet period that lasted several months, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the DOJ issued a new round subpoenas seeking testimony before a grand jury there — signs that prosecutors were still moving forward on a case that purports to show the existence of an anti-Trump grand conspiracy across U.S. spy agencies.
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