WILD WEST JUSTICE

Jaw-Dropping Chaos of Trump’s Twisted Revenge Plot Is Leaked

The president’s allies have sought to prove a “grand conspiracy” through a massive Justice Department inquiry.

A sprawling Justice Department investigation targeting President Donald Trump’s political foes has collapsed into utter internal chaos, according to insiders.

The DOJ inquiry into a purported grand conspiracy, an expansive probe designed to pursue officials whom Trump considers his enemies, has systematically unraveled following an explosive showdown between department leadership in Washington and prosecutors in South Florida, sources have told The New York Times.

SINKING SHIP

Trump’s Twisted Revenge Plot Plunges Into Crisis

Will Neal

Several of Trump’s best-known foes have been targeted in the dragnet. Former CIA Director John Brennan has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida. Former FBI Director James Comey was subpoenaed in the probe in March, while former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was subpoenaed last year. None of the men have been charged with any crime.

The inquiry’s collapse reached a boiling point on Sept. 11, according to the Times, when lead investigator Joseph diGenova, 81, abruptly quit following a profane telephone confrontation with his boss, Attorney General Todd Blanche.

DiGenova, whom Trump personally brought out of retirement in April to jump-start the case, was ordered to Blanche’s office after the veteran prosecutor lashed out at two Washington attorneys sent to Florida to accelerate the stalled inquiry.

Expecting to be fired, diGenova resigned, dealing a massive blow to the administration’s core vengeance agenda.

Shortly after, diGenova’s top deputy, Kurt Olsen, also resigned after failing a polygraph exam on his contacts with foreign individuals, an issue that severely imperiled his security clearance, the Times reports. Olsen claimed he complied with all requirements regarding foreign contacts and denied resigning over his clearance, but the back-to-back departures laid bare months of severe dysfunction.

The underlying theory of the grand conspiracy case holds that various federal inquiries into Trump spanning nearly a decade—ranging from the 2016 Russia campaign investigation to special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions over classified documents and the 2020 election—were all part of a single, continuous scheme to undermine him.

However, diGenova and his team repeatedly failed to meet the standards of evidence and jurisdiction needed to prove a conspiracy in court.

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The pressure has upended the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, led by Trump appointee Jason A. Reding Quiñones, according to the Times.

The office, which once had a staff of more than 200 lawyers, has shrunk to nearly half its size after a spate of firings and resignations. Career prosecutors were so unwilling to join the political inquiry that Reding Quiñones was forced to bring in military lawyers, a former clerk to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an unknown prosecutor from Fargo, North Dakota, and an FBI agent who previously investigated a conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was hacked by Italian satellites, the Times reports.

The internal rift widened further over resources and tactics. DiGenova became frustrated that his prosecutors were so young he had to teach them grand jury basics, the Times reports. When Reding Quiñones agreed to set aside $1 million from his office budget to build a secure facility in Fort Pierce to review classified records, Blanche’s staff flatly rejected the idea as a waste of funds.

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Tensions reached a breaking point when Washington sent two prosecutors to Florida to take control of grand jury proceedings. DiGenova threatened to have U.S. Marshals physically eject them from the room if they stepped inside, sparking the explosive phone call from Blanche that ended his tenure.

Leadership of the remaining dozen prosecutors has now defaulted to Washington deputy Aakash Singh.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the DOJ for comment on this story.

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Leigh KimminsReporter

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