Joseph diGenova submitted a resignation Thursday from a Justice Department role supervising a Florida investigation that has sought grand jury subpoenas, reports say.
Joseph (Joe) diGenova submitted his resignation to the Justice Department on Thursday after serving for several months in an assignment overseeing a widely watched investigation run out of Florida, multiple news organizations reported.
The departure was first reported by The Associated Press and later detailed by CBS News, which said diGenova told reporters he turned in a resignation letter at 3 p.m. on Thursday. A Justice Department spokesperson told CBS News the department is “grateful to Joe diGenova for his many years of service,” according to the outlet. AP reported that the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Why this matters: diGenova had been supervising an inquiry described by reporters and some officials as a “grand conspiracy” probe into whether certain Obama- and Biden-era intelligence and law enforcement officials engaged in a coordinated effort against former President Donald Trump. That investigation, centered in Fort Pierce, Florida, has recently shown signs of increased activity, including new subpoenas seeking grand jury testimony, according to reporting by AP and CBS.
Reporting indicates that prosecutors have not yet brought criminal charges in the matters diGenova was overseeing. CBS News and AP noted that recent steps in the inquiry included outreach to lawyers for witnesses and requests for voluntary interviews of former FBI agents involved in other Trump-related probes; those developments were described to reporters by sources familiar with the investigation.
Context and background: diGenova, a onetime U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., during the 1980s, was brought back into government service in April to assist with the Florida-based investigation. His appointment followed the removal of a career prosecutor who had raised concerns about the strength of evidence in parts of the inquiry, a change first reported by ABC News earlier this year.
DiGenova is a longtime ally of former President Trump and has been publicly critical of figures such as former CIA director John Brennan, who has been the subject of separate scrutiny. ABC’s April reporting noted that diGenova had publicly advocated for aggressive scrutiny of officials involved in earlier Russia-related inquiries; Brennan and others have denied wrongdoing and legal representatives have contested aspects of the probes.
CBS News reported that diGenova said his wife, attorney Victoria Toensing, who had also worked with prosecutors in Fort Pierce, was expected to leave the Justice Department on Friday. AP and CBS described diGenova as declining to comment on the circumstances behind his decision to step down.
Independent observers and some former law enforcement officials have raised concerns about the composition and direction of the examination, arguing that staffing and the pace of certain actions risk politicizing criminal process. Supporters of the inquiry say it is an effort to determine whether earlier investigative actions unjustly targeted a political figure; those characterizations reflect the debates reported in the public record.
The Justice Department has not filed public charges tied to the probe overseen by diGenova, and court filings and litigation in related matters are ongoing. It remains unclear who will immediately replace diGenova in the administrative role he held or how the investigation’s timetable will be affected.
Sources
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/prosecutor-brought-in-to-lead-investigation-of-trump-foes-tells-ap-that-he-has-resigned
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-digenova-resigns-doj-grand-conspiracy-investigation-trump-obama-biden/
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