Three Top Justice Department Officials Resign After Democrats' Midterm Sweep

Three of the Justice Department's most senior officials have resigned within two days of the Democrats' midterm sweep — an exodus that leaves the department without the leaders of two of its signature initiatives just as a Democrat-controlled Congress prepares to investigate it. John Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general who ran the National Security Division, and Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, both stepped down on Friday. They followed Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division, whose resignation was announced on Thursday.

Who left — and what they ran

Eisenberg led the division that handles terrorism and espionage prosecutions. According to Politico, he submitted his resignation on Friday, and Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the departure on social media. Eisenberg was also known for his role in the White House's handling of President Trump's first-term phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Reports say his tenure was marked by tensions with department leadership over the management of media leak investigations.

Quiñones ran the Florida office behind the so-called "grand conspiracy" investigation — the probe into the people who investigated President Trump, which sent out more than 130 subpoenas and which conservative figures had expected to produce charges against former officials, including ex-CIA Director John Brennan. According to CNN, Quiñones resigned under pressure from department leadership, and three other prosecutors had already quit the same probe. Dhillon, a former Trump election lawyer, led the Civil Rights Division for about 19 months, a period in which roughly 300 attorneys left the division.

Why now

The resignations come days after Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections, and the department now faces the prospect of aggressive oversight from Democrat-controlled committees next year. It is not unusual for senior officials to leave after a midterm, especially one that delivers a sharp setback to the party in power — but the concentration of exits, and the fact that two of them led the department's highest-profile political investigations, is what makes this wave stand out.

There is also a practical problem. With a Democratic Senate now in place, confirming successors will be harder, and the department is left without leaders for two of its signature initiatives — relitigating past investigations of Trump and targeting higher education — at the moment those initiatives face the most scrutiny. Democrats have said they plan a raft of investigations into the administration, and the Justice Department sits at the top of that list: the grand conspiracy probe, the voter-roll litigation and the hollowing-out of the Civil Rights Division are all obvious subjects. The departing officials will not be the ones answering those questions — but their successors will, and the empty chairs make the department harder to defend in the meantime. The departures are not the only ones this week: White House chief of staff Susie Wiles also announced she is leaving. Attorney General Blanche praised the departing officials for their service, but he did not explain why any of them left — and for a department about to be investigated, the silence is part of the story.

Sources: USA Today and Al Mayadeen (Politico).