Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche attends the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) 2026 National Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 24, 2026. REUTERS Aaron Schwartz
New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker found himself surprised by the Trump administration’s sheer aggression in pursuing the perceived enemies of President Donald Trump.
CNN reported on Friday that DOJ southern district prosecutor Jason Reding Quiñones arrived in Washington DC, last month to update top Justice Department officials about a distinct lack of progress. Trump’s people wanted prosecutors building criminal cases against former CIA Director John Brennan and other government officials who dared to investigate Trump between 2016 and 2024.
But sources told CNN that Quiñones’ office opened the meeting with a “firm” assessment that there was not a strong case, and that any case the DOJ fabricated would never make it to a guilty verdict — if it even managed to struggle past a grand jury.
“With Reding Quiñones sitting near her, Maria Medetis Long, the seasoned prosecutor who has led the probe since its start, told acting Deputy Attorney General Colin McDonald and Trent McCotter, his top deputy, that the case against Brennan was too weak to bring, and the evidence didn’t support the charges of lying to Congress that Justice officials and House Republicans have sought,” said CNN, according to “people briefed on the matter.”
But Long’s assessment got a frosty reception from Trump’s lieutenants.
“That’s not good enough,” was the message she received, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
It was an ominous warning, considering Trump had fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi for failing to prosecute his political enemies.
It did not help that at an earlier meeting with Bondi in April — the day Trump fired her, according to CNN — Reding Quiñones had told Bondi that prosecutors in his office “could bring the charges over lying to Congress against Brennan by the end of the year,” according to people briefed on the matter.
Now, with Trump’s personal lawyer Todd Blanche holding sway over the freshly politicized DOJ, “the latest update from Florida set the stage for a major shakeup to deliver on what Reding Quiñones has been promising since last fall,” reports CNN.
CNN reports nonpartisan prosecutors working in Florida began evacuated the department soon after Trump installed or elevated his hatchet-men.
“We all saw what Trump had said during the campaign, so people knew what was possible,” a former senior prosecutor in the office said. “But no one expected them to just come in and destroy everything. So much experience in that office, just gone.”