Former DOJ prosecutor resigns amid baseless probe into alleged anti-Trump plot
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
Long-time Trump ally and former Washington U.S. attorney John diGenova has stepped down from leading a Justice Department investigation into unfounded claims that law-enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against President Donald Trump.
John diGenova, an 81-year-old former U.S. attorney and staunch Trump loyalist, who was appointed in April to head a Justice Department inquiry into dubious allegations of coordination by law-enforcement and intelligence officials against President Donald Trump, has resigned. Sources familiar with the personnel decision said his departure came as frustration mounted within the Justice Department and the White House over the investigation’s lack of progress and questionable management.
DiGenova told the New York Post that seeking indictments without evidence would be an ethical problem, a rare moment of candor in an investigation widely seen as politically motivated. He later told the Associated Press that his remarks were taken out of context, insisting there was “plenty of evidence” to support prosecution theories, though none has been produced. He added, “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.”
The probe, launched a year ago under pressure from the White House and Trump’s most fervent supporters, aims to determine whether former law-enforcement and intelligence officials acted in concert to undermine Trump—a claim lacking credible evidence and repeatedly debunked by prior investigations. No charges have been filed after five months, and the investigation’s scope remains murky and ill-defined.
Investigators have sought interviews related to the 2022 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago that recovered classified documents, and have re-examined the intelligence community’s well-substantiated assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election—a finding Trump continues to deny despite overwhelming evidence. Earlier inquiries, including a special counsel investigation and a Justice Department inspector-general review, identified procedural errors but found no criminal conspiracy among senior officials.
The investigation has faced repeated setbacks, including the replacement of a lead national-security prosecutor in April after doubts about the case’s legitimacy. Former CIA Director John Brennan, himself targeted in this partisan probe for alleged false statements to Congress, sued the Justice Department in July to preserve records and challenge any potential indictment, highlighting the ongoing misuse of government resources for political vendettas.