The third prosecutor in charge of the Justice Department's "grand conspiracy" investigation has resigned, leaving a probe that has cycled through leadership since April without filing a single charge — and raising the question of who answers for the money burned on both sides.
Jason Reding Quiñones stepped down Friday as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the departure on X, praising Quiñones' work on violent crime, drug trafficking, and the indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro. Neither man's statement mentioned the grand conspiracy investigation. But that probe is why Quiñones mattered: his office oversaw the sprawling inquiry into whether officials who investigated Trump — from the 2016 Russia inquiry through the Mar-a-Lago documents case — conspired to deprive him of his civil rights, the Associated Press reported.
Subpoenas went to former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former FBI Director James Comey, according to the New York Post. Not one has been charged.
Quiñones is the third official to leave the probe in seven months. Career prosecutor Maria Medetis Long was removed in April after she told Quiñones there was not enough evidence to make a case, CBS News reported. Former D.C. U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova was then assigned to the investigation and quit in September after clashing with Justice officials over its pace. "If you want indictments where there's no evidence, you have an ethical problem," DiGenova told the New York Post — though he later claimed to the AP that remark was taken out of context. Kurt Olsen, Trump's director of election security and integrity, also departed a team that had lost as many as eight prosecutors, Raw Story reported.
CNN reported that DOJ leadership grew dissatisfied with Quiñones after months of promised charges failed to materialize. He had told then-Attorney General Pam Bondi his office could charge Brennan with lying to Congress by the end of the year, CNN reported in May. Brennan has denied the allegation. Sources told the Daily Beast that Justice leaders were pressing the team to secure indictments before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
CNN framed Quiñones' departure as being pushed out under pressure, calling it "what may be the final blow" to the investigation. Raw Story emphasized the string of exits and the lack of results. The Post noted the probe had "lost steam" under DiGenova.
Here's what matters for the Americans footing the bill. The original Russiagate investigation and its successors cost taxpayers millions and produced a string of cases that ultimately collapsed or were dropped. The "grand conspiracy" probe, launched in August 2025 to investigate those investigators, has now burned through its own leadership and its own budget — also with nothing to show. Career prosecutors said there wasn't a case. Political appointees pushed for charges anyway. Nobody has been held accountable on either side.
The question isn't just why this probe keeps losing its leaders. It's who keeps green-lighting investigations that can't deliver — and who pays when they don't.
