(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The first U.S. Attorney officially cleared by the Senate in President Donald Trump’s second term could offer a major clue as to what the Republican administration is planning to prioritize—and, more importantly, where.
Despite the frustrating foot-dragging from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who adjourned for Congress’s summer recess with a long list of Trump nominees left to confirm, the Senate managed to approve Judge Jason A. Reding Quiñones to be the DOJ’s new head of its South Florida office.
Trump lauded Senate Republicans for their success in defeating the stall tactics of Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer with a 51–41 cloture vote.
“The Radical Left Democrat Senators are doing everything possible to DELAY these wonderful and talented people from being approved,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If George Washington or Abraham Lincoln were up for approval, the Dems would delay, as long as possible, then vote them out.”
Reding Quiñones, a former federal prosecutor in Miami and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, was appointed to his judgeship last year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The left-leaning newspaper quickly pounced on the DOJ confirmation by highlighting his record of “poor evaluations from supervisors relating to incompetence.”
Indeed, Reding Quiñones is likely to become a prime target for Democrats intent on waging a smear campaign in the weeks and months to come. His jurisdiction makes him a strong candidate to lead the forthcoming investigation into the Russia-gate conspiracy, as noted by investigative reporter Paul Sperry.
DEVELOPING: Trump's just-confirmed South Florida US Attorney Jason Reding Quiñone previously served in DOJ's Nat'l Security Division. Leading candidate to take on Russiagate conspiracy case. South Florida district includes Mar-a-Lago. GOP donor (state) …https://t.co/mvPGmMqiBr
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) August 7, 2025
Just days after the Senate confirmation, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi—herself a former Florida prosecutor—announced that the Justice Department had directed an unnamed prosecutor to present grand-jury evidence based on the criminal referrals from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Reding Quiñones’s district includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, a location central to the conspiracy case following the Biden administration’s controversial 2022 FBI raid.
Depending on what charges are brought, the federal statute of limitations for many criminal acts expires five years after their commission. That point was not lost on critics of former special prosecutor John Durham, who allegedly slow-walked his investigation into failed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and a bevy of intelligence-community co-conspirators in 2016 and 2017.
In addition to a ticking clock, Durham faced a significant uphill battle in the courts, failing to get any serious convictions from the D.C. district, where corrupt judges and biased juries let off culprits like Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann and FBI “resistance” operative Kevin Clinesmith with slaps on the wrist.
But political insiders, including former House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes, have noted that conspiracy charges would encompass every act, suggesting a sweeping probe that would draw in the more recent plots against Trump as part of a coordinated effort, along with the 2016 Russia-collusion hoax.
“The biggest hoax of all … was the raid at Mar-a-Lago, and I think that could hold some keys, whatever evidence can be found there and how it relates to all of this, which is essentially just a ‘Get Trump’ hoax, all in one,” Nunes told former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who was Trump’s original pick to be attorney general in his current term.
Devin Nunes: the Mar-o-Lago Raid is the key to the Grand Conspiracy case which encompasses the Russia Hoax, the Ukraine Impeachment Hoax, the Hunter Biden Laptop Hoax etc pic.twitter.com/uAIDNNV6ME
— Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) July 26, 2025
Although putting the focus of the prosecution on Mar-a-Lago might ensure a fairer trial, some remained skeptical that Bondi and her DOJ prosecutors could connect the dots on such a grand scale.
Former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly said Tuesday that the grand jury would likely need to be empaneled where “all of this alleged conspiracy fraud took place”—in Washington, D.C., or New York.
“I mean, you might be able to get into Virginia because that’s where the CIA is—Langley—but boy, you’re not going to be able to get it into Florida, Texas, or a red state,” O’Reilly said, according to The Wrap.
Former Biden administration attack dog Jack Smith used a D.C. grand jury to indict Trump for mishandling classified information related to the Mar-a-Lago raid, but the case itself was ultimately relocated to Florida, where Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed it.
For an entire year, the classified docs investigation was handled by a DC grand jury overseen by hyper partisan Trump hater and Obama appointee Beryl Howell.
Even though alleged crimes occurred in Palm Beach, FLA
Then Smith impaneled a grand jury in FLA a few weeks… pic.twitter.com/edWId0UqyK
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) June 10, 2023
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
