The Justice Department has a grand jury sitting in Florida, prosecutors flown in from Washington, and an investigation whose scope nobody has defined. What it does not have, on Bloomberg's reporting, is evidence.
The same ground was covered by an inspector general and by a Trump-appointed special counsel. That inquiry produced one guilty plea, from a low-level FBI lawyer.
"One of the things that's so bizarre about what the Justice Department is doing is that they're retreading ground that has already been well plowed by other investigations."
Chris Strom covers law and national security for Bloomberg and has been reporting the internal mechanics of this investigation, including the resignation of the prosecutor brought in to run it.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it. 20 minutes of audio, 10 minutes of reading.
Here are the 9 insights that matter.
👤 Guest: Chris Strom, Legal and National Security Reporter at Bloomberg, who has been reporting on the Justice Department's grand conspiracy investigation
🎙️ Host: June Grosso, who presents Bloomberg Law for Bloomberg Radio
🧩 Other segments: Eric Talley, Professor of Business Law at Columbia Law School, on the opening of Huawei's criminal racketeering trial
📰 Published: 16 September 2026 on the Bloomberg Law podcast feed
🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 20 min | ✅ Time saved: 10 min
Key Takeaways
The prior special counsel, appointed by Trump, charged one person: an FBI lawyer who pled guilty
No other individual was charged out of the earlier Trump-Russia investigations
The investigation has an active grand jury and, by Bloomberg's reporting, no evidence of a crime
Prosecutors are now subpoenaing people to testify in person, which Strom calls a new and aggressive phase
Strom says the Florida venue has always been unexplained, and points at one judge
Fort Pierce is where Aileen Cannon sits, and she dismissed the classified documents case against Trump
The prosecutor hired in April to lead it resigned last week over pressure on pace and scope
He was pushing back on how fast Washington wanted charges against John Brennan
John Brennan has been told he is a target and subpoenaed to testify anyway
Strom's reading is that the process is the penalty: lawyers, court dates and cost
The department's record on these cases is two indictments thrown out and one set of subpoenas quashed
James Comey and Letitia James were both dismissed over mishandling by the US attorney at the time
1. A 10-Year Grand Conspiracy
Grosso set up the segment on Trump's long-running account of a conspiracy to get him, and asked Strom what the investigation named after it actually covers.
"Well, the investigation is an extremely broad probe into multiple actions that were taken at the end of the Obama administration during the Biden administration"
The span runs from one end of the decade to the other. It starts with the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign was involved, and reaches the Biden-era investigations into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his removal of classified documents to Mar-a-Lago.
"What's happening here is that Trump has demanded that the Justice Department investigate and potentially prosecute his perceived political enemies."
The people he wants investigated fall into two groups: those involved in the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation and the intelligence assessment produced at the time, and those involved in the classified documents case.
2. Ground Already Plowed
Grosso's first challenge was that the Russia allegations have been investigated repeatedly, including by a special counsel Trump himself appointed.
"One of the things that's so bizarre about what the Justice Department is doing is that they're retreading ground that has already been well plowed by other investigations."
He listed the prior work: multiple investigations into 2016, an inspector general investigation into the activity, and then John Durham as special counsel during the first Trump administration.
Durham's yield was one person. "And he was only able to find one low-level FBI lawyer who lied on a document, and that individual pled guilty." No other individual was ever charged.
The objection he says is being raised now follows directly from that: the department is going back ten years into activity that has already been examined without findings of wrongdoing.
Grosso's version of the same point was blunter, on the documents half: there were pictures of boxes of classified material piled up at Mar-a-Lago, so it is not obvious where the conspiracy is.
3. No Evidence Yet
Asked what charges could actually be brought, Strom described a process running well ahead of its own findings.
"There's a lot of skepticism that the Justice Department is going to be able to find anything new, given that a lot is already known about these investigations."
The machinery is nonetheless in place: "They've convened a grand jury and they've sent a bunch of prosecutors down to Florida and they're looking under as many rocks as they possibly can and bringing people in before the grand jury to testify with the hopes of finding something that they can pin to somebody who Trump once investigated."
His statement of where it stands is unambiguous. As of now there is no indication that they have found any criminal wrongdoing or have any justification to bring charges.
What exists instead is activity: an active grand jury, testimony, documents received, and people placed under investigation.
"And they are moving forward with an undefined scope of investigation." There is, he said, no clear ending in sight.
The likeliest outcome he describes is not a prosecution at all: "So what might happen is that prosecutors will eventually write up a report and talk about activity that they believe was not justified and was done in the spirit of trying to make Trump look bad. But in the end, they just issue a report without any criminal charges."
4. Brennan, Clapper, Comey
Grosso asked who is being targeted. Strom named them, and then drew the distinction between being named and being chargeable.
"Individuals that we know who are under investigation include John Brennan, the former CIA director, James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and other senior officials who were either in the Obama administration or the Biden administration." The others worked for the FBI or the intelligence agencies.
He separated what Trump wants from what the file supports. Trump wants well-known figures — Brennan, Clapper and James Comey — under investigation and, ideally, charged.
"But at this point, there's not been any indication that evidence exists to actually bring charges against any of these individuals."
5. Prosecution as Punishment
Grosso put the thesis to him directly: that the investigation itself, the news of it and the cost of defending it are the point. Strom agreed.
"Part of what the Justice Department seems to be doing at this point is making the prosecution the punishment that by prosecuting individuals and putting them under investigation, they have to spend a lot of money and they have to spend a lot of time."
The itemized cost is the argument: hiring lawyers, appearing in court, filing documentation.
His conclusion is that people are being placed under investigation for the sake of being under investigation.
6. Blanche Changed the Pace
Asked whether the investigation had accelerated under the new attorney general, Strom said it had, and gave the chronology.
"Yes. By all accounts, the investigation has entered a new phase." It had previously been running in fits and starts.
The first phase ran under Pam Bondi, based in the Southern District of Florida, with investigators building theories of the case and then issuing document subpoenas — a great many of them last year, after which the pace stalled.
Bondi was removed in April; Todd Blanche came in as acting attorney general and was confirmed in August. Activity has picked up since.
The change that matters is the kind of subpoena. "And the most significant thing is that prosecutors in Florida are now sending out subpoenas for individuals to come in and testify in person before the grand jury. And so this marks kind of a new and aggressive phase for the investigation."
7. Why Fort Pierce
Grosso asked the obvious question about the venue — whether it is simply because Mar-a-Lago is there. Strom's answer is the most pointed reporting in the segment.
"The reason why the Justice Department based the investigation in Florida has always been a mystery." Much of the conduct under investigation has no apparent connection to the state.
The jurisdictional theory is the conspiracy itself. "And prosecutors are trying to stitch together kind of a Frankenstein of a case that says that there is a grand conspiracy against Trump ranging over 10 years." If any of the ten years of alleged activity happened in Florida, the theory goes, Florida can host all of it.
The documents case does supply a real Florida connection — the resort, and the FBI search carried out there.
Strom's own read is about the courtroom rather than the conduct. The department did not want to bring the case where the jury pool or the bench might be unfavorable, and Fort Pierce is where Judge Aileen Cannon sits.
Cannon oversaw the classified documents case against Trump, ruled repeatedly in his favor and ultimately dismissed it. Grosso added that she was reversed twice by the 11th Circuit.
"And so it appears what the Justice Department is now trying to do is engineer a way to get any kind of charges that they bring in front of Judge Cannon."
The cost is borne by the office hosting it. "What we've been able to report is that The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida has been turned upside down" — its traditional caseload set aside in favor of this investigation and other matters Trump wants, including possible indictments of Cuban officials and work on Venezuela.
8. The Lead Prosecutor Quit
The most concrete news in the segment is a resignation last week, and Strom has reported the reason.
Joe DiGenova was brought in by the Justice Department in April to lead the investigation. He is a longtime Trump ally and conservative lawyer who served as US attorney for the District of Columbia in the 1980s before going into private practice.
He worked on it for about five months. "But last week, he abruptly resigned."
"What we've been able to report at this point is that he was very frustrated and mad at the heavy-handed approach that was coming out of Washington and the Justice Department leadership to dictate what the pace and scope of the investigation should be."
"He was pushing back on how fast the Justice Department wanted to do grand jury activity and potentially bring charges against individuals like John Brennan and eventually reached a boiling point where he could not continue doing the investigation the way that he believed it should be done."
No single successor has been named. Strom described a cast of prosecutors in southern Florida each running different elements, with a conservative lawyer and Trump ally leading the Brennan strand; that lawyer called Brennan's counsel on Friday to say Brennan is subpoenaed for grand jury testimony and is a target.
The Brennan strand runs from 2016 to the present day — the intelligence community assessment on Russian activity, and testimony Brennan gave Congress a few years ago that is alleged to have been less than honest.
Formally the office is run by its Senate-confirmed US attorney, whom Trump handpicked, but Strom said the day-to-day scope is being farmed out to prosecutors sent down by department leadership in Washington.
Grosso's objection to the mechanics is the sharp one: "That's so odd. If Brennan's a target, how can they expect him to testify?" Strom said they are apparently asking him about parts he is not a target for, and that his lawyers may move to quash the subpoena or negotiate a voluntary interview instead. "But yes, John Brennan faces jeopardy because he has been told he's a target of the investigation, and now they want him to come in and testify before a grand jury, which is highly unusual." Refusing outright, he noted, risks contempt of court.
9. The Track Record
Grosso closed by asking about the legal theories, pointing out that the ones used against Trump's perceived enemies so far have not worked.
"The Justice Department at this point doesn't have a good track record in terms of bringing prosecutions against Trump's political enemies."
"They've previously indicted James Comey, as well as the New York Attorney General Letitia James. And both of those indictments were thrown out because of mishandling of the case that was done by the U.S. attorney at the time."
The third case is the one with the clearest market relevance: "the Justice Department has also investigated Jerome Powell, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. And they issued subpoenas to him in the Federal Reserve as part of a criminal investigation. And Powell and the Fed challenged the subpoenas, and they were quashed."
"And so already we've seen the Justice Department try to bring prosecutions based on theories that Trump wants them to pursue that have not stood up in court."
On the current theories, he said they remain hard to see from outside, because the underlying investigations involved intelligence sources and national security material. The two buckets he can identify are the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation including the intelligence community assessment, and the Mar-a-Lago search and classified documents case.
"And at this point, we just haven't seen any evidence that would support criminal prosecution. But the Justice Department says the case is moving forward and that they believe that their prosecution theories are on solid ground."
Bonus Insights
Grosso opened the segment on the campaign-trail version of the grievance — the Russia investigation, the impeachments and the search of Mar-a-Lago — and framed the investigation as Trump turning the tables on the people who investigated him.
Strom's characterization of the document phase is worth holding onto for anyone tracking the case: the subpoenas last year were for paper, and the shift to compelled in-person testimony is the signal that the department thinks it has somewhere to go.
The department has been receiving documents and taking testimony throughout, which means the absence of charges is not the absence of activity — a distinction Strom returned to twice.
Strom's bottom line is that the grand conspiracy investigation is an active, well-resourced process built on a jurisdictional theory designed to reach one judge, with no evidence of a crime yet reported, run by prosecutors whose predecessor quit over the pressure to move faster.
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