Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office Collapse Amid Trump’s Retribution Cases

The Miami U.S. attorney’s office is in turmoil after redirecting resources from criminal cases to aid Donald Trump’s personal legal agenda, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

This shift has triggered a mass exodus of staff, severely hampering the department’s ability to prosecute white-collar crime and narcotics trafficking cases, according to more than a dozen sources who spoke with the outlet.

Since Trump returned to office, several dozen attorneys have left the Southern District of Florida—either by quitting, retiring, or being fired by the current administration. One unit focused on prosecuting economic crimes lost roughly half of its staff, Bloomberg reported.

The Justice Department has issued different figures. The DOJ has recorded just 26 departures since Jason Reding Quiñones took over as U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida in August 2025.

Two months after his confirmation by Congress, Reding Quiñones filed more than two dozen subpoenas to U.S. officials involved in the 2016 Russian election interference inquiry. Within Trump loyalist circles, this investigation has been internally redefined as the “grand conspiracy.” The unsubstantiated theory flips Trump’s legal challenges on their head, claiming that real charges—and Trump’s brief legal setbacks—were part of a baseless scheme by Democrats and “deep-state” operatives to destroy Trump and his political movement.

Trump’s Retribution Focus in the Southern District

The district has become the epicenter of Trump’s political retribution since Reding Quiñones took over. However, it is not the only office reorienting its resources under pressure from Trump’s White House.

• The Department of Homeland Security has shifted resources away from other missions to support Trump’s deportation plans.
• The Department of Defense reallocated billions of dollars to fund Trump’s border mission.
• More than 6,000 FBI agents were reassigned to handle “immigration-related matters,” fundamentally altering the agency’s priorities.

The Justice Department has also dropped thousands of criminal cases to prioritize immigration prosecutions. In the first six months of Trump’s term, the agency closed approximately 23,000 criminal cases—including investigations into terrorism, white-collar crimes, and drugs—while initiating 32,000 new immigration cases.

Contradictions in Trump’s “Making America Safe Again” Narrative

The shift in priorities suggests that “making America safe again” may not be the primary goal of the current administration, despite Trump’s public pledges. Under his direction, federal authorities have arrested thousands of noncriminal immigrants nationwide, despite repeated assurances that the deportation efforts target only the “worst of the worst”—such as “murderers, pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and terrorists.”