The Justice Department has removed the lead prosecutor overseeing an investigation involving former CIA Director John Brennan, a longtime critic of President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move came after Maria Medetis Long, a veteran prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida, told colleagues that she had recently told her superiors there was not ample justification to bring criminal charges against Brennan.
first reported that Trump’s Justice Department removed Medetis Long from the case. Over the weekend, the case was set for another turn: a Justice Department official told that Joseph diGenova will take over on Monday. DiGenova, a former Trump campaign lawyer who also helped defend Trump during his first term, is expected to help lead what the Times called “a sprawling inquiry” into what members of Team Trump have referred to as a “grand conspiracy” case.
Trump’s Justice Department first started targeting Brennan six months ago after the incumbent president said that Brennan was on his enemies list. The inquiry is being run with a Florida grand jury overseen by Judge Aileen Cannon, and Long had been helping Miami U.S. Attorney Jason Quinones examine Republican conspiracy theories surrounding the origins of Trump’s 2016 Russia scandal.
The removal of the lead prosecutor matters because it signals the department is moving ahead even after an experienced career lawyer questioned whether the evidence supported charges. That tension sits at the center of the Brennan probe: a politically charged investigation aimed at one of Trump’s most outspoken critics, now being handed to a Trump loyalist as the grand jury work continues. MS NOW said the Times report has not been independently verified.
What happens next is plain enough. DiGenova is due to take over Monday, and the case will keep moving through the Florida grand jury process under Judge Cannon while the department presses an inquiry that its backers have cast as a grand conspiracy.
