Trump DOJ's 'grand conspiracy' prosecutor quits as cases sputter

The federal prosecutor tapped to run the Justice Department's so-called "grand conspiracy" investigation into Trump's perceived enemies is out. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Friday on X that Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, had handed in his resignation.

Blanche praised Reding Quiñones for work on violent crime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking and transnational crime, and nodded to the indictment of Raúl Castro. He added that Reding Quiñones had "served the Department multiple times over his distinguished career." In his own social media post, the departing prosecutor said he leaves "with immense pride in what we accomplished together and profound gratitude for the opportunity to serve our great Nation."

The probe he oversaw chased a big theory: that separate investigations into Trump were pieces of one broader plot against his rights. It aimed to charge officials over conduct more than a decade old, linking actions from the 2016 campaign to Special Counsel Jack Smith's work — the cases over Trump's push to overturn the 2020 election and the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, both since dismissed. Trump denied the charges. No charges were ever brought directly under the conspiracy effort.

His exit is the second high-profile resignation at Justice this week, following the GOP's bruising midterm losses. Harmeet Dhillon, who ran the Civil Rights Division and tried to bring a case against former Jan. 6 committee witness Cassidy Hutchinson, quit Thursday. That indictment bid failed, and a judge also tossed a case against two former FBI officials House Republicans accused of lying to Congress.

Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who now leads Justice Connection, said Reding Quiñones "will forever be known as this president's Don Quixote for tilting at the windmill of the so-called grand conspiracy," telling NBC News his departure follows a well-worn path. She urged his successor to follow Attorney General Robert Jackson's advice and pick cases where the offense is most flagrant and the proof most certain.

The churn isn't new. Joe diGenova, who worked under Reding Quiñones in South Florida, resigned in September and told NBC News that DOJ headquarters officials muscled in on the investigation. "Everybody was in their lane, and then some lanes got crossed, and then I decided to leave," he said. Meanwhile, prosecutors are still chasing a case against former FBI Director James Comey over 2016 conduct involving a reporter and national defense information, while a separate Comey matter — an Instagram photo of seashells the administration calls a threat against Trump's life — sits pending in North Carolina.