This is an accepted version of this page
Joseph diGenova | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| United States Attorney for the District of Columbia | |
| In office December 2, 1983 – March 1, 1988 | |
| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Stanley S. Harris |
| Succeeded by | Jay B. Stephens |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1945-02-22)February 22, 1945 (age 80) Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | |
| Education | University of Cincinnati (BA) Georgetown University (JD) |
Joseph diGenova (born February 22, 1945) is an Americanlawyer andpolitical commentator who served as theUnited States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988.[1][2] He and his wife,Victoria Toensing, are partners in theWashington, D.C., law firm diGenova and Toensing.[3][4] He is known for promoting conspiracy theories about theDepartment of Justice and theFBI.[13] He and Toensing frequently appeared onFox News andFox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spreadconspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network.[14][15]
In March 2018, President Donald Trump announced that diGenova and Toensing would join his legal defense team during theMueller investigation; the appointments were withdrawn days later, citing an unspecified conflict of interest, though Trump personal attorneyJay Sekulow said they might assist in other legal matters.[16] In July 2019, diGenova and Toensing began representing Ukrainian oligarchDmitry Firtash to assist his efforts to avoid extradition to the United States under a federal indictment, as their associate and Trump's personal attorneyRudy Giuliani sought information in Ukraine to damage Democratic presidential candidateJoe Biden.[17][18][19] In November 2020, Trump named diGenova, Toensing,Sidney Powell andJenna Ellis to join a legal team led by Giuliani tooverturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Trump was defeated.[20]
DiGenova was an aide to Republican SenatorCharles Mathias of Maryland, eventually serving as Mathias' legislative director. After Republicans won the U.S. Senate in the1980 elections, DiGenova was named chief counsel and staff director of theSenate Rules Committee and counsel to theSenate Judiciary,Governmental Affairs, andSelect Intelligence committees.[21][22]
As a U.S. attorney, diGenova led the prosecution ofJonathan Pollard, who pleaded guilty in 1987 to spying for Israel.[21]
He also led investigations into corruption in the administration of Washington, D.C.,Mayor Marion Barry that led to convictions of 12 officials, including two deputy mayors.[23][2]
DiGenova later served asIndependent Counsel investigating the 1992 preelection search of then-candidateBill Clinton's passport file by officials of theGeorge H. W. Bush administration.[24] DiGenova concluded that the passport search had been "stupid, dumb and partisan," but not illegal, and that the government should apologize to the officials who ordered the search.[24]
DiGenova and his wife,Victoria Toensing, started their Washington law firm, diGenova & Toensing, in January 1996.[4][25]
In 1997, diGenova was named Special Counsel to investigate theInternational Brotherhood of Teamsters; afterward he was named to an independent review board to monitor the Teamsters.[22]
DiGenova called on President Trump to pardonScooter Libby, adviser ofDick Cheney, who was found guilty of perjury in an investigation revolving aroundleaks of sensitive classified material.[26] DiGenova is married to Libby's lawyer, Victoria Toensing.[27] Trump pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.[28]
DiGenova, who frequently appears as acommentator onFox News, has accused FBI officials of trying to "frame"PresidentDonald Trump for "nonexistent" crimes.[29] On March 19, 2018, he and his spouse, Victoria Toensing, were hired to serve on Trump's legal team for theSpecial Counsel investigation.[6] However, Trump backtracked the hires several days later due to potentialconflicts of interest.[16] The president hoped diGenova could function as a stand-in for him on television and spearhead the attacks on Mueller and the investigation.[30]
In April 2018, diGenova called for the firing of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, said that special counsel Robert Mueller's team investigatingRussian interference in the 2016 election were "legal terrorists" and called former FBI DirectorJames Comey "a dirty cop".[5] In May 2018 tweet, Trump quoted diGenova as saying "The recusal ofJeff Sessions was an unforced betrayal of the President of the United States."[31]
On February 21, 2019, diGenova stated in the podcast ofLaura Ingraham that the US is in acivil war and that he advises friends to prepare for total war by voting and buying guns.[32]
On September 18, 2018, diGenova discounted charges that U.S.Supreme Court nomineeBrett Kavanaugh, then 17 years old, had allegedly sexually assaulted a 15-year-oldChristine Blasey Ford at a party. The allegations referred to a time when Kavanaugh was attendingGeorgetown Preparatory School. On Fox News, diGenova said if Ford testified, "she's going to look like the loon that she is."[33]
In July 2019, diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, were hired by the Ukrainian oligarchDmytro Firtash, to defend Firtash from extradition to the United States on corruption charges related to a mining permit in India.[34][35][36] In 2017, theUnited States Justice Department described Firtash as an "upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime."[37] As a middleman for the Russian natural gas giantGazprom, Firtash was known for funneling money to campaigns of pro-Russia politicians inUkraine[38] and is also a onetime business partner ofPaul Manafort, a Trump 2016 campaign chairman.[39] When he was vice president,Joe Biden had urged the Ukrainian government to eliminate middlemen such as Firtash from the country's natural gas industry, and to reduce the country's reliance on imports of Russian natural gas.[18]
In August 2019, diGenova and Toensing met with Attorney GeneralWilliam Barr to argue against the charges for Firtash.[18] Prior to that meeting, Barr had been briefed in detail on the initialTrump–Ukraine scandal whistleblower complaint within the CIA that had been forwarded to the Justice Department, as well as on Giuliani's activities in Ukraine.[18] Barr declined to intercede, according to sources who talked toThe Washington Post.[40]
In October 2019,Lev Parnas, a businessman who was working for diGenova and Toensing's firm as an interpreter in the Firtash case, was one of two men arrested atDulles International Airport and accused by federal prosecutors of funneling foreign money into U.S. elections.[41]The New York Times reported in November 2019 that Giuliani had directed Parnas to approach Firtash with the recommendation to hire diGenova and Toensing, with the proposition that Firtash could help to provide compromising information on Joe Biden, an arrangement Parnas's attorney Joseph Bondy described was "part of any potential resolution to [Firtash's] extradition matter."[18] In November 2019, Bondy toldThe Washington Post that Parnas had been part of "a group that met frequently in spring 2019 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Biden matter, among other topics. The group, according to Bondy, was convened by Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, and included Parnas, his business associate Igor Fruman, as well as journalist John Solomon and the husband-and-wife legal team of Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing."[42] After Firtash hired diGenova and Toensing, Giuliani acquired a statement[43] from former Ukrainianprosecutor generalViktor Shokin that falsely alleged Biden had pressured Ukraine to fire him in an effort to cover up corruption by Biden and his son. Shokin's statement noted that it was prepared "at the request of lawyers acting for Dmitry Firtash."[44][45] Giuliani had presented the Shokin statement during television appearances, and Bloomberg News reported that its sources told them Giuliani's publicity of the Shokin statement had greatly reduced the chances of the Justice Department dropping the charges against Firtash, as it would appear to be a politicalquid pro quo.[17]
DiGenova and Toensing worked withRudy Giuliani onopposition research fromUkraine to be used against the 2020 Democratic candidateJoe Biden, according toFox News Sunday.[46] All three were working off the books, outside the administration, according to Fox News. "The only person in government who knows what they were doing is President Trump," Fox hostChris Wallace said.[47] DiGenova called the story "categorically false."[46]
DiGenova and Toensing are lawyers forJohn Solomon, a conservative columnist who has written stories favorable to Trump on scandals involving Ukraine and Russia. "John Solomon has been a client of our firm for a very long time," diGenova toldPolitico.[48]
In November 2019, in an appearance on Fox News, diGenova claimed thatGeorge Soros "controls a very large part of the career foreign service of the United StatesState Department" and "also controls the activities of FBI agents overseas who work for NOG's, work withNGO's. That was very evident in Ukraine."[49] TheOpen Society Foundation, founded by Soros, described diGenova's claims as "beyond rhetorical ugliness, beyond fiction, beyond ludicrous" and requested that Fox News provide an on-air retraction of diGenova's claims, and stop providing diGenova with a platform.[50] Although the network never publicly announced it had banned diGenova, as of September 2020[update], diGenova had not appeared on Fox following the incident.[51] In September 2020, diGenova said, "I don't know what George Soros has onSuzanne Scott, the head of Fox, but the bottom line is this: that network is compromised when it comes to Soros."[51]
In November 2020, President Donald Trump named diGenova, Toensing,Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis to join a legal team led by Rudy Giuliani to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Trump was defeated.[20]
On November 30, 2020, diGenova used an appearance onThe Howie Carr Show (released onYouTube) to call forChris Krebs to be "drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot". DiGenova's specific criticism was that Krebs "thinks the election went well". Krebs was the formerDirector of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for theUnited States Department of Homeland Security and had been fired by Trump earlier that month for contradicting Trump's false and baseless claims of widespread election fraud.[52][53] On December 8 Krebs filed a civil lawsuit against diGenova, the Trump campaign, andNewsmax TV, accusing them of "defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, aiding and abetting, and civil conspiracy". He said that he has received "a barrage of threats and harassment" as a result of diGenova's comments and "faces a genuine risk of imminent harm."[54]
DiGenova and his wife were among several Trump associates who were emailed byOANN anchorChristina Bobb on December 13, 2020, regarding efforts by Republicans in seven states to appointfalse electors and create fraudulentcertificates of ascertainment to be submitted to vice presidentMike Pence for certification on January 6, 2021.[55]
Three days afterentering office for the second time in January 2025, Trump signedan executive order to declassify the remaining documents pertaining to theassassination of John F. Kennedy within 15 days.[56] More than 60,000 documents were released two months later on March 18.[57][58] The unredacted documents included the Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal data of former congressional staffers including diGenova. In response, diGenova announced his intent to sue the National Archives for violating thePrivacy Act of 1974.[59]
DiGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, both used to work within the US Justice Department, but later made their reputations peddling conspiracy theories on TV about the DOJ and FBI.
DiGenova is known as a fierce defender of Trump who has used frequent guest appearances on Fox News to advance far-out conspiracy theories that the FBI is trying to frame the president.
Joseph diGenova has promoted conspiracy theories about a 'deep state' attempt to 'frame' Trump and his campaign for criminal activities
DiGenova, a regular Fox News guest, had spouted conspiracy theories about the Mueller probe's motives against Trump.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
