By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (Reuters) – Jason Reding Quiñones, who oversaw probes into past criminal investigations of US President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Miami, has resigned, Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Friday.
As US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Quiñones was at the center of Trump’s attempts to leverage the Justice Department to exact revenge on his political adversaries. His office was tasked with investigating the criminal probes of Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office in 2021 and his campaign’s contacts with Russia in the 2016 election, among other issues. Those efforts have not borne fruit so far.
His resignation marks the departure of the second senior Justice Department official since Tuesday’s midterm elections, when Trump’s Republicans lost control of Congress. The DOJ now is without leaders for two of its signature initiatives — relitigating past investigations and targeting higher education. Harmeet Dhillon, who headed the DOJ’s civil-rights unit, resigned on Thursday.
It was not immediately clear why Quiñones resigned. In a statement on X, Quiñones said his resignation was effective Friday and called it an honor to serve in the role.
His office had also brought criminal charges against former Cuban President Raul Castro in a major escalation of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the communist country.
(Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, editing by Andy Sullivan, David Ljunggren and Nia Williams)
