Harmeet Dhillon, a California attorney who radically reshaped the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to focus on political issues important to President Trump — including by targeting transgender rights and launching a nationwide probe for alleged voter fraud by noncitizens — resigned her post Thursday. In a resignation letter and in a post to X — where she routinely lambasted liberal policy and touted her office’s legal work to dismantle it — Dhillon said serving as the division’s chief was an honor. I look forward to what’s next!” Critics of Dhillon — including prominent civil rights leaders who had opposed her confirmation to the post — cheered her departure, saying she had flipped the storied Civil Rights Division on its head by attacking pillars of its past work, such as affirmative action policies, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, LGBTQ+ rights and voting rights.
Trying to avoid actual oversight? Or getting pushed out by DOJ leadership?” said Vanita Gupta, who headed the Civil Rights Division under President Obama. Dhillon’s departure comes two days after a midterm election in which Republicans suffered sweeping losses, and amid widespread speculation as to how Trump and other leaders in his administration would respond — and who among them, if any, would leave or be unceremoniously ousted.
Turnover after such an electoral drubbing is not uncommon. In her resignation letter, Dhillon said she initially resigned in October, but that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles asked her to stay until after the midterms. Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Dhillon did “a fantastic job ... boldly protecting Americans’ civil liberties.” Dhillon also touted what she called “historic victories for the American people” under her leadership, and specifically cited her work ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs, suing states such as California over their policies for transgender students and athletes, suing California and other states for their voter rolls, defending gun rights, and fighting anti-Semitism.
Dhillon’s success in those initiatives was middling at best — and in some areas disastrous. Out of dozens of lawsuits demanding states turn over their voter rolls, for instance, she had zero wins. Todd Blanche, on X, wrote that Dhillon “has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor,” and that the department “is grateful for her dedicated public service” and wished her “every success in her future endeavors.” A spokesperson for Dhillon said she was returning to her firm, the Dhillon Law Group.
Mark Trammell, the CEO of the conservative Center for American Liberty — which Dhillon founded — praised her work in the Justice Department as “advancing civil rights for all Americans.” Others expressed stridently different feelings about her tenure. Stacey Young, executive director of Justice Connection, a nonprofit organization of former Justice Department employees that advocates for a non-politicized department, blasted Dhillon’s tenure in the department and cheering her departure. She later relented amid intense public pressure to launch an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but was criticized for assigning inexperienced staff and not taking the probe seriously.
Dhillon also helped dismantle long-standing firewalls between the Justice Department and the White House, acknowledging that she saw her mission as pursuing civil rights in line with Trump’s executive orders. She focused on targeting universities for allegedly discriminating against white and Asian students, attacking policies protecting transgender students and athletes in California and elsewhere, and launching her failed nationwide effort to obtain state voter rolls in order to root out alleged noncitizen voters. She also took a leading role in threatening election workers processing ballots in the midterms.
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