Top lawyer in DOJ's National Security Division abruptly resigns

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November 6, 2026 / 12:51 PM EST / CBS News

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John Eisenberg, the Justice Department's National Security Division assistant attorney general, abruptly resigned on Friday, the department said.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Eisenberg's departure on X, thanking him for "strengthening our nation's ability to address threats, both foreign and domestic."

Eisenberg is the second assistant attorney general this week to step down, just two days after Democrats swept the midterm elections and won back control of the House of Representatives and Senate.

On Thursday, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon also tendered her resignation, though she had already told the White House before the election that she intended to step down.

Another Trump-appointee at the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones of the Southern District of Florida, also resigned on Friday.

Eisenberg, unlike Dhillon, maintained a relatively low profile during his tenure at the National Security Division, which over the last year has lost a large number of its career staff.

The division was thrust into the uncomfortable role late last year of overseeing the redactions of millions of pages of investigative files related to accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a monumental task that was mandated by Congress amid mounting pressure to publish the files.

The assignment was later expanded to enlist help from other parts of the Justice Department, including the FBI, the Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan, which collectively detailed 400 attorneys to review approximately 5.2 million pages.

The redactions have since come under withering criticism, with many of Epstein's victims complaining that their names and personal details were inadvertently publicly released. Members of Congress also accused the Justice Department of improperly redacting information about possible unindicted co-conspirators.

Created several years after the 9/11 terror attacks, the National Security Division is in charge of managing the Justice Department's counterterrorism and counterintelligence work, export control enforcement and reviewing foreign investments in U.S. companies.

Many types of national security cases brought by U.S. attorney's offices around the country require consultation and sometimes approval by the National Security Division.

Since President Trump took office in January, the National Security Division has played a role in some of the highest-profile cases, including major leak investigations that have targeted journalists such as Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, whose home was raided earlier this year as part of an Espionage Act investigation into a government contractor.

The division has also been at the heart of sweeping changes to domestic terrorism investigations initiated by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi last year. 

In December, Bondi ordered law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to prioritize efforts to investigate and prosecute groups and individuals who belong to the anti-fascist antifa movement or are deemed "extremist."

Her memo broadened the scope of the kinds of crimes that might be pursued as domestic terrorism cases, such as doxxing members of law enforcement or parading with the intent to obstruct the administration of justice.

The National Security Division was involved this year in bringing the first-ever case before the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a decades-old, secretive federal immigration court that uses classified evidence to deport suspected "alien terrorists," even if they have never been charged with a crime.

But before the court could test the constitutional limits of the case, the target in the case — Nazira Haji Zada — agreed to be deported to her native Afghanistan rather than contest the government's allegations that she was an "alien terrorist."

In:

• United States Department of Justice