The Justice Department's top national security official is out, the second assistant attorney general to walk away from the department in a single week — and the departures are landing just two days after Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday's midterms.

John Eisenberg, who has served as Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division since being confirmed by the Senate in June 2025, resigned Friday, the department confirmed. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the departure on social media, thanking Eisenberg for "strengthening our nation's ability to address threats, both foreign and domestic" but offering no explanation for the timing.

A familiar name from Trump's first term

Eisenberg is no stranger to Trump-world controversy. During the first Trump administration he served as a deputy White House counsel and legal adviser to the National Security Council — and he was the official who moved the transcript of Trump's 2019 call with Ukraine's president into a highly classified system, a decision that became a flashpoint in Trump's first impeachment. Unlike some other high-profile DOJ departures, Eisenberg kept a low public profile during his tenure leading the division.

"STRENGTHENING OUR NATION'S ABILITY TO ADDRESS THREATS, BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC."

He wasn't the only senior DOJ official to leave this week. Harmeet Dhillon, who led the department's Civil Rights Division, resigned Thursday — though she had reportedly told the White House before Election Day that she planned to step down regardless of the result. And on the same Friday Eisenberg departed, Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, also resigned amid internal disputes over a politically charged "grand conspiracy" investigation.

A division already thinned out

The National Security Division was created after the Sept. 11 attacks to handle counterterrorism, counterintelligence, export-control enforcement and reviews of foreign investment in U.S. companies; many national security prosecutions require its sign-off. Under the Trump administration it has taken on an unusually high profile, overseeing the court-ordered redaction of millions of pages of Jeffrey Epstein investigative files — a process critics say inadvertently exposed victims' names — and bringing the first case before the Alien Terrorist Removal Court earlier this year. The division has also lost significant numbers of career staff over the past year, according to reporting on its operations.

No successor has been named. With Democrats set to take the House and Senate gavels in January, any Trump nominee to permanently fill the post will face a very different confirmation landscape than the one Eisenberg sailed through in 2025.