Joseph diGenova, the veteran prosecutor tapped to lead the Justice Department's investigation into whether Trump was the target of a political conspiracy, resigned after five months on the job, with no indictments to show for it and reports he had lost the confidence of the White House.
DiGenova handed his resignation letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche at 3 p.m. ET on September 10, ending a brief and turbulent tenure as counselor to the attorney general. USA TODAY reported that ABC News first broke the story, and that neither the Justice Department nor the White House responded to requests for comment.
The 81-year-old diGenova, a Reagan-era U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who served from 1983 to 1988, was brought on in April to run a sprawling investigation based out of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Fort Pierce, Florida. The probe, labeled the "grand conspiracy" investigation, examined three major threads: the 2017 U.S. intelligence finding that Russia sought to boost Trump's 2016 campaign, former Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and Smith's separate probe into Trump's efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.
In a statement to Reuters, diGenova kept his public remarks brief and gracious.
"It was an honor and privilege to serve the president and the department."
But in a more revealing comment to the Associated Press, diGenova pushed back against any suggestion that the investigation lacked a factual foundation.
"There's plenty of evidence in all of these cases to prove the theories of prosecution. It just takes time to get there, and some people want to get there a little faster than others, and you can't do that."
That comment points to a friction that multiple outlets described: a gap between the pace diGenova thought the investigation required and the timeline the White House and DOJ leadership apparently expected. Fox News reported, citing anonymous sources, that diGenova had "lost the confidence" of both the Justice Department and the White House and had been effectively sidelined well before his formal departure.
DiGenova also told the New York Post that ethical constraints shaped his approach. "If you want indictments where there's no evidence, you have an ethical problem," he said, a line that suggests the pressure he felt was to produce results faster than the facts would allow.
The broader pattern here is worth noting. Allegations that law enforcement officials weaponized investigative power against Trump have been a central conservative grievance for nearly a decade. The grand conspiracy probe was supposed to be the mechanism for accountability, a formal DOJ effort to determine whether Obama- and Biden-era officials broke the law in their pursuit of Trump.
DiGenova was not the first person to hold this role. Before his appointment on April 20, a career federal prosecutor named Maria Medetis Long had been handling the matter. The Associated Press, citing anonymous sources, reported that Long was removed after she expressed doubt there was sufficient evidence for a criminal case against former CIA Director John Brennan, one of the probe's primary targets.
That removal raises a straightforward question: Was Long pushed out because her assessment was wrong, or because her assessment was inconvenient? DiGenova's own resignation five months later, still without charges, does not settle the question, but it does not strengthen the case that Long was the problem.
The investigation's key targets remain former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey. Some Trump allies had expressed hope the probe could result in charges against both men, as well as against former Special Counsel Jack Smith. Brennan has denied wrongdoing and sued the Justice Department to force officials to preserve documents related to the investigation. Comey, meanwhile, has already been charged by the Trump administration in two separate cases, though the details of those cases were not specified in the available reporting.
Investigators had also been interviewing current and former intelligence employees and, in recent weeks before diGenova's departure, sought to question FBI officials involved in the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. Legal experts cited in reporting questioned whether prosecuting in the Southern District of Florida was appropriate, given that much of the activity under scrutiny took place in Washington and Virginia.
Questions about the political use of prosecutorial power cut in both directions. Conservative critics have long argued that Democratic prosecutors targeted Trump with politically motivated investigations. The grand conspiracy probe was, in part, an effort to hold those officials accountable. Its failure to produce charges so far does not mean the underlying concerns were unfounded, but it does mean the DOJ has yet to convert those concerns into courtroom results.
DiGenova's wife, attorney Victoria Toensing, who had joined the federal prosecution team in Florida, is also expected to leave the DOJ by the end of the week, Just The News reported. Her departure compounds the disruption. Defense lawyers connected to the case told the outlet that the grand jury in Fort Pierce had been in a particularly active period, with a heavy wave of subpoenas issued in recent weeks.
That timing makes the resignations more consequential. If the investigation was gaining momentum, subpoenas flowing, witnesses appearing, losing both diGenova and Toensing simultaneously could stall the effort or force yet another reset. No replacement has been named, and it remains unclear who, if anyone, will take over the probe.
DiGenova's position as counselor to the attorney general was described as rare but high-ranking, giving him direct access to Attorney General Blanche and the White House. The Washington Examiner noted that his tenure lasted only several months, a remarkably short run for someone brought in to lead what was billed as one of the administration's most significant investigations.
The conservative case for investigating the origins of the Russia probe and the conduct of officials like Brennan, Comey, and Smith has never been weaker on the merits. Allegations of political bias in law enforcement targeting of Trump and his allies are well-documented and serious. What has been weak is the execution.
A career prosecutor was removed for raising evidentiary concerns. Her replacement, a well-known Trump ally with decades of prosecutorial experience, lasted five months and left amid reports he had been sidelined by the very administration that appointed him. The grand jury was active. Subpoenas were flying. And yet no charges materialized.
DiGenova himself insisted the evidence is there and that the work simply requires patience. That may be true. Complex conspiracy cases do take time, and rushing to indict without sufficient proof would be the mirror image of the prosecutorial overreach conservatives have rightly condemned when Democrats do it.
But the DOJ and White House now face a credibility problem of their own making. If the grand conspiracy investigation was important enough to launch, important enough to remove a career prosecutor over, and important enough to install a high-ranking counselor to the attorney general to lead, then it is important enough to see through with competence and continuity. Cycling through personnel while the probe drifts does not project strength. It projects disorder.
Accountability for the people who abused federal power to target a president is a cause worth pursuing. But causes are won with convictions, not press releases, and right now, the scoreboard reads zero.
