Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has resigned from the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, leaving the office without a named successor after criticism from former department lawyers.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on X on Nov. 5 that he had accepted Dhillon’s resignation and described her tenure as 18 months. The announcement came two days after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Fox News Digital reported that Dhillon told the outlet she had decided weeks earlier to return to private practice. It also reported that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles asked Dhillon to remain in the job until after the midterms. Fox News Digital said it obtained a resignation letter Dhillon sent to President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.
Dhillon said her work included what she called the “downfall of illegal DEI” and efforts to protect women’s and girls’ sports.
The Associated Press reported that fewer than one-quarter of the division’s employees from the start of Trump’s second term remained on Nov. 5. AP also reported that former department attorneys criticized Dhillon’s leadership, saying conservative priorities gained weight over the division’s customary civil-rights enforcement.
DOJ said its Civil Rights Division coordinated an Election Day operation involving about 1,000 monitors and observers across all 50 states. The department called it the largest such effort in its history. It said election integrity was a top priority for the administration and the division, and traced its monitoring work to 1965, when Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act. EconoTimes previously covered the department’s plan for nationwide election monitoring.
Blanche did not name a successor in his announcement.
