DOJ Miami Office Readies Conspiracy Probe Into Trump Enemies (2)

The South Florida US attorney’s office is recruiting prosecutors and restructuring its chain of command in preparation for a grand jury investigation expected to target former Justice Department officials and others involved in cases against President Donald Trump.

Under the leadership of a Trump-loyalist US attorney, Jason Reding Quiñones, the Miami-based office has been inviting current staff and outside lawyers to join the new investigative team to be housed within its national security unit, said four people familiar with the situation.

The exact scope of the grand jury effort—which one of the individuals described as “special counsel oversight”—remains unclear.

A federal judge recently empaneled a new grand jury to convene Jan. 12 in Fort Pierce, Fla. That prompted close Trump allies to strongly indicate this will be the venue to review what they allege is a broad Democratic conspiracy to thwart Trump, including Russian collusion claims and indictments over Mar-a-Lago documents and election interference.

Scott Strauss, a law school classmate of Reding Quiñones who worked with him as a South Florida federal prosecutor, is playing a potentially significant role in the plans, said the people, who spoke anonymously to avoid reprisal.

Less than two years into the job, Strauss was pushed out of the US attorney’s office for trying to launch baseless 2020 voting fraud conspiracy investigations, the individuals added. He proceeded to help lead Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ election crimes office in 2022.

People close to the office are waiting to learn if Strauss will return to head up the grand jury project, or if a respected career prosecutor currently running the national security section will remain in charge of it. Strauss recently asked at least one attorney from outside the office to join the South Florida grand jury team, three people familiar with the matter said.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment.

An email to Strauss’ currently listed work account bounced back, suggesting he’s switched jobs. Strauss declined to comment via text message, including on whether he’s in the process of returning to DOJ.

Two of the office’s recently-hired line prosecutors abruptly resigned under duress after being asked this week to join the grand jury investigation, said three individuals.

They exited following a tense meeting in which superiors accused them of leaking information about their new assignment to the media or discussing it with colleagues.

MAGA Pressure

The national security unit has long been organized as a section within the office’s criminal division, but Reding Quiñones this week informed staff that he stripped the criminal chief’s authority by ordering the national security group to start reporting directly to the US attorney’s executive office, according to a Nov. 3 email obtained by Bloomberg Law.

That announcement came 14 hours after prominent MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec denounced the criminal chief, Peter Forand, on X for donating $2,300 to the 2024 Kamala Harris presidential campaign and other Democratic causes.

Forand will “be in charge of” of the newly empaneled grand juries “to investigate Crossfire Hurricane and the Mar-a-Lago raid conspiracy,” Posobiec posted. “Can Forand be trusted to fairly investigate the Biden regime and Jack Smith if he’s friends with them and donates thousands of dollars to them?”

About two hours after Reding Quiñones emailed out the new leadership structure, Posobiec referenced his earlier Forand criticism in a new post to his 3.2 million followers: “UPDATE: Hearing good things on this.”

Forand, who former colleagues say has operated as a nonpartisan prosecutor willing to implement any administration’s objectives, had previously been removed from an office directly outside of Reding Quiñones’ executive suite to a different part of the building, three people said.

That office space is now occupied by a newly hired chief of staff to the US attorney—an unusual position under any top prosecutor. That chief of staff, Jim Poland, is an FBI agent on detail, who’s overseeing the office’s “non-litigation and administrative functions,” Reding Quiñones wrote to staff Nov. 3.

As his team lays the groundwork for the January grand jury, Reding Quiñones has been taking extra precautions in warning staff about keeping office business confidential.

Late last month, Reding Quiñones messaged all employees—flagged with a red high-priority notice—to remind them about DOJ rules forbidding unauthorized communications with the press, according to a copy of the note obtained by Bloomberg Law.

The two resigning assistant US attorneys—one a registered Republican and the other a military veteran—were both considered promising prosecutors inside the office, said three people.

Trump Adviser

The Miami office’s preparations come as Mike Davis, an influential Trump legal adviser, has called for his friend, Reding Quiñones, to investigate what he’s termed “lawfare Democrats” under a Reconstruction-era “conspiracy against rights” statute designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan.

“For the last three-and-a-half years since the Mar-a-Lago raid I have very publicly called for a grand jury in Fort Pierce,” Davis told Bloomberg Law on Thursday. He added, “I hope my very good friend Jason Reding Quiñones” will hold them accountable for the “Russian collusion hoax” and the “Mar-a-Lago raid.”

Reding Quiñones was sworn into office in August, after serving as a state trial court judge in Miami-Dade County.

He’s pushed the South Florida district—one of the largest and most historically significant US attorney’s offices in the country—closer to the president’s agenda. His mission statement includes the phrase “restore impartial justice.”

In an Oct. 29 Truth Social post, Trump singled out former officials such as Special Counsel Jack Smith and several members of his team, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and FBI Director Chris Wray as people who are “a disgrace to our Nation” and “should be investigated, immediately.”

MSNBC reported Thursday that Reding Quiñones’ office is also readying grand jury subpoenas for an investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan related to the 2017 intelligence assessment about Russian election interference.

Fort Pierce, which is more than a two hour drive north of Miami, offers a majority conservative jury pool and a small courthouse with only one district court judge. That jurist, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, issued several ruling favorable to the then-former president while presiding over his classified documents case.