Trump Administration Gets Its First Major Post-Midterms Departure

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon resigned Thursday as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, a role in which she transformed the storied office into a platform for advancing conservative culture-war politics.

Dhillon’s departure after 18 months in the role was confirmed by Attorney General Todd Blanche, who thanked her for her service in a terse statement on social media. Dhillon is the first senior administration official to resign in the wake of Republicans’ crushing defeat in the midterm elections.

“The Department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors,” Blanche wrote.

Dhillon told Fox News on Thursday that she decided to resign three weeks ago but was asked by Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, to wait until after the midterm elections.

“I wasn’t asked to resign,” Dhillon told Fox.

Dhillon helped spearhead the DOJ’s unsuccessful efforts to intervene in the midterms, overseeing the filing of dozens of lawsuits seeking to force states to hand over sensitive voter data.

The legal challenges failed across the board, with federal judges throwing out all but a small handful of cases her subordinates filed.

She also dispatched a record 1,000 DOJ election monitors across the country to watch polls on Election Day, instructing them to look for cases of alleged voter fraud in addition to their normal duties of passively watching for compliance with voting rights and accessibility laws.

Those monitors were assigned to Democratic-leaning areas, with a focus on counties with higher immigrant populations and minority voters, an analysis from The Washington Sun found. They included for what appeared to be the first-time criminal prosecutors, a departure from the division’s practice of using only civil attorneys and non-attorney staffers.

Established in 1957 through the landmark Civil Rights Act, the division has long been lauded for its role in dismantling segregation, combating hate crimes and protecting Americans’ equal treatment under the law. Former Attorney General Eric Holder called it the DOJ’s “crown jewel.”

Dhillon, a former Republican operative in California and loyal ally to President Donald Trump, pushed out legions of career staffers through separation incentives, reassignments and pressure campaigns.

Many longtime Civil Rights Division attorneys who left were replaced by DOJ newcomers with ties to conservative legal organizations and little experience in civil rights law. All but two of roughly three-dozen attorneys in the division’s Voting Section departed; some of Dhillon’s new hires worked on legal efforts connected to Trump’s campaign to subvert the 2020 election results.

Dhillon moved swiftly to overhaul the division’s founding mission of protecting Americans against discrimination, launching an array of new initiatives focused on gun rights, religious liberties, anti-diversity efforts and other conservative causes.

At the same time, under Dhillon the Civil Rights Division withdrew from scores of cases, many of them longstanding, involving school desegregation and police misconduct.

Dhillon’s resignation was met with a sense of relief from many current and former Civil Rights Division employees.

“I will frame her resignation,” one current division staffer said, asking for anonymity to avoid retaliation.

Stacey Young, a former DOJ attorney who now heads the DOJ alumni group Justice Connection, called Dhillon the “most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history.”

“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,” Young said in a statement. “We call on the incoming Senate to exercise its full advice and consent powers to ensure the next Assistant Attorney General fulfills the division’s congressional mandate to enforce all Americans’ civil rights diligently and fairly.”

Dhillon had been threatening to leave for months after clashing with Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward in the spring, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It’s not clear who will replace Dhillon on an acting basis while administration officials consider a successor for the Senate-confirmed position. Jesus Osete, the division’s second in command, could assume the job, though he has been nominated for a federal judgeship in Missouri.