DiGenova to lead Florida probe into former officials who investigated Trump

Joe diGenova, 81, took over a Florida federal probe aimed at former officials who investigated Donald Trump, a move that deepened questions about whether the Justice Department is enforcing the law or turning a criminal inquiry into political retaliation. The appointment put one of Trump’s most loyal legal defenders at the center of a case that reaches back to the Russia investigation and later Trump-era probes.

DiGenova previously served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia during the Reagan era, then returned to Trump’s orbit as a campaign lawyer and as counsel in efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. He was named counsel to the attorney general and detailed to the Southern District of Florida after Maria Medetis Long, a career prosecutor, was removed from the Brennan-related work.

The investigation is being overseen by Trump-appointed U.S. attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones and is being driven through a grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida, before Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. The case has already generated more than 130 subpoenas since it accelerated last year, and former FBI Director James Comey has been subpoenaed in the grand conspiracy inquiry. The probe is said to be examining whether intelligence officials and prosecutors engaged in a years-long effort to unlawfully target Trump.

DiGenova’s arrival is likely to sharpen the political stakes. He has publicly called former CIA Director John Brennan a “real traitor” and accused him of lying to Congress. Bloomberg Law also reported that DiGenova once called for a fired Trump cybersecurity official to be “taken out at dawn and shot,” later apologizing in 2021. Those remarks are now colliding with a federal investigation that already looks designed to satisfy Trump’s grievances as much as to test criminal liability.

Trump allies have suggested the case could help overcome statute-of-limitations problems by alleging one continuing conspiracy with overt acts inside the last five years. Critics and former officials see something else: a politically charged prosecution shaped by a Trump-favorable venue, a Trump-appointed judge, and a handpicked loyalist now steering the inquiry into Trump’s enemies. The result is a stark test of whether the Justice Department’s guardrails can hold when politics and prosecution converge.