Joe diGenova, the prosecutor who was tapped by Attorney General Todd Blanche to supervise the “grand conspiracy” investigation targeting Obama- and Biden-era officials, abruptly resigned on Thursday.
In a brief call with CBS News, diGenova said he had turned in his resignation letter to Blanche at 3 p.m. on Thursday.
“It was an honor and a privilege to serve the president and the department,” he said. He added that his wife, attorney Victoria Toensing, who also worked with the team of federal prosecutors in Fort Pierce, Florida, will be leaving the Justice Department on Friday.
diGenova declined to comment on the reasons for his sudden departure, which was first reported by ABC News. CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
His exit comes just days after lawyers representing some of the witnesses in the investigation received emails alerting them that their clients would be receiving grand jury subpoenas, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Recently, diGenova’s investigators also reached out to lawyers who represent former FBI agents who investigated President Trump for his retention of classified records to request voluntary interviews, two other sources briefed on the matter said.
diGenova was tapped earlier this year to oversee a sprawling “grand conspiracy” probe being run out of Fort Pierce, Florida, that is examining whether Obama- and Biden-era officials were part of a long-running conspiracy to keep Mr. Trump out of political office.
He was also overseeing a criminal probe into whether Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress in 2023 about the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
diGenova was tapped for the role in April, after Maria Medetis Long, the prosecutor who had been overseeing the two cases in the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami, was abruptly removed after she had expressed some concerns about the strength of the evidence.
Prosecutors have not brought charges in either of the probes.
The investigations have drawn criticism from law enforcement veterans who worry the probes are being stacked with politically motivated personnel, CBS News has previously reported. Brennan sued over the investigations earlier this year, alleging the Trump administration has “adopted a policy of using criminal process and prosecution to punish the President’s perceived adversaries.”
diGenova returned to the Justice Department in April, more than three decades after he served as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., from 1983 to 1988.
More recently, diGenova represented Mr. Trump’s campaign in its failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
He has long railed against Brennan’s role in assessing that Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 election, referring to him in one interview as the “primogenitor of the entire counterintelligence investigation.”
