Top DOJ official resigns amid questions surrounding “grand conspiracy” probe
The top federal prosecutor in South Florida who was overseeing the so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation into Obama- and Biden-era intelligence officials abruptly resigned on Friday, marking another high-profile departure from a Justice Department inquiry plagued by internal disputes and doubts about its viability.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the resignation of Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and praised him for his work tackling violent crime, trafficking and transnational criminal organizations.
The statement offered no explanation for his departure.
In a post on X, Quiñones thanked President Trump for the opportunity and said it had been “the privilege of a lifetime to serve” alongside his colleagues in the Southern District. “I leave with immense pride in what we accomplished together and profound gratitude for the opportunity to serve our great nation,” he wrote.
His exit is the latest blow to the investigation based in Fort Pierce, which is probing whether former intelligence officials under two different Democratic administrations conspired to keep Mr. Trump out of office through a series of criminal and intelligence investigations. The probe is also separately focusing on whether former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about the agency’s role in the creation of an intelligence assessment that determined Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Quiñones’ departure comes after Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., in the 1980s, also abruptly quit his role in September amid disagreements with the Deputy Attorney General’s Office over the management of the investigation.
Things came to a head with diGenova after senior Justice Department leaders sent two attorneys from Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter’s office to Florida to try to help manage the case, which both diGenova and Quiñones resisted, sources previously told CBS News.
Since then, Kurt Olsen, a former White House attorney who was known for his efforts to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, also resigned from the case, while several others who were temporarily assigned to the probe returned to their home U.S. attorney’s offices after their details came to an end.
Earlier in the year, the lead career prosecutor in Quiñones’ office who was overseeing the investigation was also sidelined after she expressed concerns about the strength of the evidence, CBS News previously reported.
Blanche told reporters in late October that Quiñones “always has been in charge” of the investigation and downplayed prior departures from the investigation, saying “people leave and stay all the time.”
“We’re going to let that investigation continue as it should,” Blanche said, adding, “there’s no frustration” with the pace of the probe.
The investigation has generated extensive grand jury activity but has yet to produce charges establishing the alleged overarching conspiracy.
Quiñones’ resignation comes just a day after the Justice Department announced the departure of Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The son of Cuban refugees, Quiñones has tried to make a name for himself in South Florida by pursuing investigations into communist Cuban government officials who have committed crimes impacting the United States.
Earlier this year, he established a Cuba-focused task force that brought together law enforcement agents from multiple agencies to work on investigations. He also oversaw the criminal prosecution of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro and five others in connection with the Cuban military’s fatal downing of two planes 30 years ago.
Separately, his office has also been working on a new criminal investigation targeting former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who is in a jail in New York City awaiting trial on criminal drug and torture charges, CBS News previously reported.
The Miami-based investigation is focused on corruption, one source previously told CBS News, and began shortly before Alex Saab, a close business associate of Maduro who served as Venezuela’s minister of industry and national production, was deported to the U.S. and indicted for his alleged role in a money-laundering conspiracy scheme.
Saab has since pleaded guilty in the case, raising questions among observers about whether he might agree to cooperate and provide prosecutors with evidence against Maduro.
