DOJ resignations snowball as national security chief who drove Trump ‘bonkers’ quits

Justice Department national security chief John Eisenberg quit President Donald Trump’s administration, the third senior department official to resign since Democrats swept this week’s midterm elections.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on X on Friday that he had accepted Eisenberg’s resignation.

Politico also reported the departure, citing two people familiar with the matter. As head of the National Security Division, Eisenberg oversaw terrorism, leak, and espionage cases, the outlet said.

“This marks John’s second tour of duty serving President Trump as a national security official and advisor,” Blanche wrote.

People who worked with Eisenberg during Trump’s first term, when he was the National Security Council’s top lawyer, described him in very different terms, Politico reported in 2019.

Eisenberg took notes in meetings with Trump, a habit that “drove the president absolutely bonkers,” a former White House official told the outlet.

“His sense was people were taking notes because they were going to write a book or testify against him,” the official said.

A former National Security Council colleague called Eisenberg “extremely paranoid,” according to Politico.

“John is a brilliant and careful lawyer,” said Steven Engel, who then led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. “It’s no coincidence that he’s been at the White House through four national security advisers and three White House counsels.”

The post-election resignations began Thursday, when Harmeet Dhillon stepped down as head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, according to Fox News.

On Friday morning, Blanche wrote on X that Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, had submitted his resignation.

All three officials had been confirmed by the Senate, according to Bloomberg Law, which reported Eisenberg’s 52-43 party-line confirmation in June 2025.

Before the election, the only Senate-confirmed department official to leave in recent weeks was Patrick Davis, who resigned in October from the Office of Legislative Affairs, Bloomberg Law reported.

That is one Senate-confirmed exit in the weeks before the vote, then three on Thursday and Friday.

Former officials told Bloomberg Law the department is bracing for more top political appointees to leave before the new year.

“MORE RESIGNATIONS likely at DOJ after now 2 top officials have issued their resignation this Friday, following Harmeet Dhillon’s departure from the department yesterday,” Washington Examiner Justice Department reporter Kaelan Deese wrote on X.

All three leave behind work tied to Trump’s own political fights.

Eisenberg’s division helped prosecute John Bolton on charges of illegally keeping classified information from his time as Trump’s national security adviser, Politico reported. Bolton became a critic of Trump after leaving the White House.

Reding Quiñones oversaw the “grand conspiracy” investigation of Trump’s adversaries, which has not produced indictments, Bloomberg Law reported.

In the run-up to the midterms, Dhillon defended the administration’s investigation into noncitizen voting on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Fox News reported.

Eisenberg’s is the only one of the three exits that no one has publicly explained.

“I wasn’t asked to resign,” Dhillon told Fox News, The Hill reported.

Reding Quiñones resigned “under pressure from department leadership,” sources told CNN. He gave no reason in his own post on X.

Blanche’s post did not say why Eisenberg left, and a department spokesperson and Eisenberg did not immediately respond to Politico’s requests for comment.

Permanent replacements for all three jobs will need Senate confirmation, and Democrats won control of the Senate in the midterms, NPR reported. Unless the Republican-led Senate confirms successors before the new Congress is seated in January, Trump will need a Democratic majority to approve his picks.