Miami U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, Who Indicted Raúl Castro, Resigns as Trump's 'Grand Conspiracy' Probe Stalls

Jason Reding Quiñones, the Miami-born U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida who secured the federal indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, resigned Friday, Nov. 6, effective immediately. His departure leaves South Florida's federal prosecutor's office without a confirmed leader and throws into question the future of the Fort Pierce "grand conspiracy" investigation into President Donald Trump's political adversaries, a probe that has produced extensive grand jury activity but no charges.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the resignation, and neither he nor Reding Quiñones offered a reason. It came the day after Harmeet Dhillon's exit as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division was announced, part of a string of high-level departures in the days after Republicans' midterm losses.

What he and Blanche said

In a post on X, Reding Quiñones wrote, "I submitted my resignation to the President as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, effective today," according to NBC 6 South Florida. He said public service "has been the honor of my lifetime," adding, "But leading the U.S. Attorney's Office in my home district has been especially meaningful." He thanked Trump for his trust and wrote, "I leave with immense pride in what we accomplished together."

Blanche credited him with leadership against violent crime, drug trafficking, sex trafficking and transnational crime, "including the indictment of Raúl Castro," and wrote that he "has served the Department multiple times over his distinguished career," NBC 6 reported. CBS News Miami noted that the statement offered no explanation for the departure. CNN reported, citing its own sources, that he left under pressure from department leadership after months of promised charges in the conspiracy probe did not materialize.

The "grand conspiracy" probe

The investigation Reding Quiñones oversaw is based in Fort Pierce, in the northern part of his district, and has used a federal grand jury there. According to CBS News, it is examining whether former intelligence officials under two Democratic administrations conspired to keep Trump out of office through criminal and intelligence investigations, and separately whether former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about the agency's role in a 2016 intelligence assessment that found Russia tried to interfere in that year's election. Brennan has denied wrongdoing, the Associated Press has reported. Axios reported in March that former FBI Director James Comey had been subpoenaed in the investigation.

The case has been marked by turmoil. Joe diGenova, the veteran prosecutor tapped to supervise it, quit in September after disputes with the Deputy Attorney General's Office over its management, and former White House attorney Kurt Olsen also left the case, CBS reported. Senior department leaders had sent attorneys from Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter's office to help run it, a move diGenova and Reding Quiñones resisted. Earlier in the year, the lead career prosecutor was sidelined after voicing doubts about the strength of the evidence.

As recently as late October, Blanche said Reding Quiñones "always has been in charge" and described the earlier departures as routine, according to CBS. The grand jury's work remains under seal, and no indictment has emerged alleging the overarching conspiracy the investigation set out to prove.

The Raúl Castro case

For many in Miami's Cuban American community, Reding Quiñones will be remembered for the Castro indictment. On May 20, 2026, federal prosecutors in his district unsealed charges against Castro, who was Cuba's defense minister in 1996, and five co-defendants over the Feb. 24, 1996, shootdown of two unarmed Cessna aircraft flown by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Cuban MiG fighters killed four men: Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales.

The federal charges against Castro, now 95, and the five others include four counts of murder, two counts of destruction of aircraft and conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, NBC 6 reported. Then-Acting Attorney General Blanche and other senior officials announced the indictment in Miami at a ceremony honoring the victims.

A separate state case followed. On Oct. 19, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a state charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder against Castro at a news conference at Florida International University, and Chief Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit signed a state arrest warrant, according to NBC 6.

Other Florida cases on his watch

Reding Quiñones, the son of a Cuban political refugee, created a Cuba-focused task force in his office earlier this year, CBS reported. His office has also been investigating corruption tied to former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who is jailed in New York awaiting trial on separate drug and torture charges. That Miami-based probe began shortly before Maduro associate Alex Saab was deported and indicted; Saab has since pleaded guilty.

The office also brought cases against Tren de Aragua. In August, a federal jury convicted two Orlando men in a Sinaloa Cartel-directed plot to rob what they believed was a South Florida drug trafficker, using an armed crew that prosecutors said included members of the Venezuelan gang, according to NBC 6.

Who he is

A Miami native raised in Miami-Dade County, Reding Quiñones earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Florida and a law degree from Florida International University College of Law in 2008. He served more than 23 years in the U.S. Army and Air Force, and he was promoted to colonel on April 1, 2026, while serving as senior reserve judge advocate to the commander of U.S. Central Command in Tampa, according to his Justice Department biography.

His career at a glance, according to the Justice Department and NBC 6, is below.

He was the first U.S. attorney confirmed during Trump's second term, according to reports at the time of his swearing-in.

What it means for South Florida

The Southern District of Florida covers Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Monroe, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Okeechobee and Highlands counties, with the Fort Pierce division at its northern end. A change at the top affects everything from health care fraud and drug smuggling cases to immigration prosecutions and public corruption investigations.

For the Castro case, the practical effect may be limited: the indictment is already returned, and its fate depends far more on whether Castro is ever brought before a U.S. court than on who leads the office. The conspiracy probe is another matter. With its supervising U.S. attorney gone, following the earlier exits of diGenova and Olsen, the investigation has lost every senior figure publicly associated with it.

What's next

Neither the Justice Department nor the White House had named an acting or interim U.S. attorney for the district as of Friday. Any permanent replacement would require a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, and Democrats, who won control of the Senate on Tuesday, take over that chamber in January. The Fort Pierce grand jury remains empaneled, and its evidence remains under seal.