Jason Reding Quinones Resigns as US Attorney for Southern District of Florida

Updated 17:28 UTC: John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general who headed the Justice Department National Security Division, also resigned on Friday, Attorney General Todd Blanche said, Reuters reported. Fox News, CNN and The Washington Post also reported Eisenberg's resignation on Friday. Eisenberg's departure makes three senior Justice Department officials who have resigned in two days, after Harmeet Dhillon on Thursday and Quinones on Friday. Reuters said it is not clear why Eisenberg or Quinones resigned, and said the department is now without leaders for two of its signature initiatives, relitigating past investigations and targeting higher education. Reuters also said senior officials often leave after a midterm election, especially one that delivers a sharp setback to the party in power, and that Democrats plan a raft of investigations into the Trump administration. CNN said the departures could make it harder for the administration to confirm new officials in a Democratic Senate, though the president could install acting leaders for the rest of his term. No successor for Eisenberg was named in the reports.

Jason Reding Quinones submitted his resignation as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida on Friday, November 6, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on X. Reuters and Bloomberg Law both reported the announcement within the hour, and the New York Post reported it the same morning.

The departure is the second at the top of the Justice Department in two days. Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division, stepped down on Thursday, November 5. Reuters reported that the two resignations follow the Republican losses in the midterm elections, in which Democrats swept both chambers of Congress.

"We are grateful for Jason's leadership in combatting violent crime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and transnational crime, including the indictment of Raul Castro," Blanche wrote on X, in the announcement quoted by Bloomberg Law. "Jason has served the Department multiple times over his distinguished career, and we thank him for his service to this country." Blanche's announcement used that Castro wording.

CNN reported later on Friday that Quinones resigned under pressure from department leadership, citing people familiar with the matter. CNN said top Justice Department officials blamed Quinones after the grand conspiracy case he had promised within months failed to materialize, and that his frequent travel to Washington reminded them of that failure. CNN said the exit may end the grand conspiracy effort. None of the other outlets reported a reason given by Quinones himself. No successor or acting US Attorney was named in the announcement or in the coverage that followed it.

Quinones's office oversaw the investigation that Reuters calls President Donald Trump's election conspiracy probe. Bloomberg Law described it as a grand conspiracy probe of Trump's adversaries and reported that it has not produced indictments. The New York Post reported that the investigation began in August 2025 and examined an alleged conspiracy among former Obama administration officials to push claims of collusion between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government. It led to subpoenas of former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey, the Post reported.

Joe diGenova, who led the investigation after Quinones, resigned as head of the investigation on September 10. People familiar with the probe told the Post it had lost steam in recent months under diGenova. "If you want indictments where there's no evidence, you have an ethical problem," diGenova told the Post in a phone interview about his own resignation.

Quinones is a former line prosecutor. Bloomberg Law reported that he was the first Trump-appointed US attorney confirmed by the Senate, in mid-2025, and that the office has seen significant attrition of veteran prosecutors under his leadership. The Justice Department said he was sworn in on August 13, 2025, after nomination by President Trump and confirmation by the Senate, and that he led more than 500 attorneys and professional staff across district offices.

Reuters described the Southern District of Florida as long considered one of the strongest US attorney offices in the country. The wire service said the office has been at the center of Trump's attempts to use the Justice Department against his political adversaries and to shape US foreign policy.