Trump Loyalist’s Stunning DOJ Exit Came After ‘Tense’ Clash With AG Todd Blanche: Report

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

Joe diGenova, a loyalist of President Donald Trump who stunningly resigned from the Department of Justice last week, did so after a tense phone call with Attorney General Todd Blanche, CNN reported on Monday.

DiGenova, who was tasked with overseeing a sweeping Justice Department investigation targeting Trump’s political foes, abruptly resigned on Thursday.

In a phone call with New York Post Washington Bureau Chief Josh Christenson, after word of his departure got out, diGenova said: “If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem.”

CNN reported more about what may have prompted that resignation on Monday.

The tense phone call with Blanche “centered on diGenova’s effort to block lawyers dispatched by Justice Department headquarters from assisting the probe, following broader disagreements with top Justice officials over its pace,” according to the network.

The report went on:

Among the disputes that added to tensions between diGenova and his bosses in Washington was diGenova’s request for a high-security room known as a SCIF to be built at the Fort Pierce office, to make it easier for the prosecution team to store highly classified materials, two people familiar with the investigation told CNN. The team worked in an office with a special room where sensitive, but not the highest-classified, evidence could be handled. Justice Department officials told diGenova he and his team should use a SCIF at an FBI office miles away, two people familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Since joining DOJ in April, diGenova was working on a criminal indictment against former CIA Director John Brennan and other Trump political opponents.

Sources told ABC News that Trump and senior DOJ officials were growing frustrated with a lack of results on the “grand conspiracy” probe.

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