Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Attorney General Todd Blanche said.4,8
Blanche announced the move in a post on X, writing, "Today, I accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division with conviction the past 18 months," and adding, "She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor." He also wrote, "The Department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors." The departure makes her the first high-profile official to depart President Donald Trump's administration after the disastrous midterm cycle, the Daily Caller reported, citing several reports.4,8
Dhillon first assumed the role in April 2025 following a party-line confirmation vote in the Senate, the Daily Caller reported. She previously served as a campaign lawyer for Trump and founded her own California-based law firm, the Dhillon Law Group. She for years ran her own law firm in San Francisco. ABC News described her in its headline as a longtime Trump ally, and CBS News described her as a staunch ally of Trump who is a frequent guest on conservative podcasts and a very active poster on social media.8,4,7
The division Dhillon led is often described as the "crown jewel" of the Justice Department. During her tenure, more than 75% of its staff departed last year. She shifted many of the division's traditional priorities that had focused on combating discrimination against some of the nation's most vulnerable and historically marginalized groups, and reoriented it toward other priorities that included protecting gun owners' rights, curbing the use of equity, diversity and inclusion policies at universities, and adopting legal positions that oppose civil rights protections for transgender people.4
During her tenure, the Justice Department closed many of its cases involving discrimination targeting Black Americans and announced it had dismissed more than 50 decades-old consent decrees with public schools, many in the Deep South, that were in place to protect Black students from unlawful discrimination.4
Dhillon nixed two pending consent decrees last year with the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments over systemic abuses that were investigated in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. She also rescinded the investigative findings of misconduct into six other police departments.4
Earlier this year, after immigration agents shot and killed American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as they were protesting the administration's immigration crackdown, the Civil Rights Division did not move to open any criminal civil rights investigations. CBS News described that inaction as in violation of longstanding practice for such high-profile officer-involved shootings. The division ultimately got involved in the Pretti case after the Justice Department faced criticism and questions about why Homeland Security Investigations, and not the FBI, was leading the probe into its own agency. To date, no charges have been filed in the Pretti case, which is also separately under investigation by state officials.4
Voting rights was one of the areas in which she was most vocal. Under her leadership, the Civil Rights Division filed 31 lawsuits against primarily blue states and the District of Columbia in an effort to gain access to unredacted voter rolls. Lawyers from the division repeatedly argued that they needed the information to ensure states were complying with two federal voting laws that require them to maintain clean voter lists. However, they later admitted in court that the Justice Department intended to share the information with the Department of Homeland Security so they could use it for criminal and immigration enforcement purposes. So far, the Justice Department has lost 27 of those cases.4
During the midterm elections on Tuesday, the Civil Rights Division sent out more than 1,000 monitors to polling sites across the country, a record number that required the Justice Department to solicit volunteers from unusual parts of the DOJ, including the Bureau of Prisons and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The resignation came days after Republicans endured a bruising midterm defeat, with Democrats flipping seven Senate seats and dozens of House seats so far, according to the Daily Caller.4,8
Unlike her predecessors, Dhillon frequently took to X to post her own videos about the work that her division was undertaking. She acknowledged in media interviews that she often generated ideas for civil rights investigations based on various posts she encountered on social media. She has sometimes announced the opening of civil rights investigations online, a stark departure from historical practice. She also handed out challenge coins to fellow Justice Department attorneys with the term "FAFO" ("f***around and find out") printed on it.4
Stacey Young, a former Civil Rights Division attorney who founded the nonprofit advocacy group Justice Connection, called Dhillon "the most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history" in a statement on Thursday, and said, "Americans' civil rights don't enforce themselves. For almost 70 years, the Civil Rights Division brought to fruition the civil rights laws that Americans demanded. Dhillon decimated it." Dhillon and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.4,8
