The definition of a Mafia made man is one who has Italian blood and is formally initiated into the “family,” having sworn an oath of omerta and promising to put the crime family above all else. Traitors take their lives in their own hands, and they often do not live to tell the tale, which means that it’s rare for anyone to go against the family, especially in public. That’s why it was so surprising to see longtime Republican operative Joe diGenova resign from his job as a top Trump consigliere — or, more formally, “special counselor to the attorney general” — on Thursday. If there was ever a GOP-made man, it is him.
DiGenova was appointed in April to oversee the Justice Department’s big inquisition in Florida after the career prosecutor who had been running it resigned over concerns that they did not have a prosecutable case against former CIA chief John Brennan. DiGenova, who had not prosecuted a case since his stint in the Reagan Justice Department, was a trusted GOP loyalist. He was involved in many of Rudy Giuliani’s crusades during Donald Trump’s first term, including the Big Lie court cases that went nowhere. This made him widely seen as the kind of partisan stalwart the administration needed to kick-start the investigation. Expectations in the MAGAsphere were high.
