Head of DOJ Civil Rights Division resigns after GOP midterms loss

WASHINGTON — Harmeet Dhillon, the Republican attorney who oversaw a massive overhaul of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, submitted her resignation on Thursday.

Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on X that he has accepted Dhillon’s resignation. He wrote that she “defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor” and that the DOJ “is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors.”

The departure of Dhillon, who had a long history of working as an election lawyer for the GOP, comes just two days after Democrats won control of both the House and Senate in the midterm elections.

Under Dhillon’s leadership, the Civil Rights Division led some of the Trump administration’s most controversial legal maneuvers, including lawsuits that cited claims of discrimination at elite universities. The division declined to open a use-of-force investigation into the ICE officer who shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota earlier this year.

Her office also filed lawsuits against 30 states and Washington, D.C., in an effort to obtain voter registration lists from the states in the months before the election, with federal judges dismissing 27 of those cases. Dhillon was a regular presence on conservative media in the run-up to Tuesday’s elections, promoting the work of the Civil Rights Division.

Dhillon is set to speak at the Donald Trump Ballroom at the Mar-a-Lago Club during the Conservative Political Action Committee’s Circle Retreat and Gala on Thursday.

Bloomberg Law first reported her resignation plans.

Dhillon’s office recently attempted to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump administration official who testified before the House Jan. 6 committee about Trump’s actions during the Capitol siege.

Her office also brought a criminal case against former CNN journalist Don Lemon and protesters over a demonstration at a church in Minnesota under a statute historically used to protect reproductive rights facilities.

Stacey Young, the executive director of the group Justice Connection, called Dhillon “the most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history,” and said in a statement that she “wielded the enormous power of the Justice Department to threaten universities, state and local officials, and election workers in spurious cases that rarely won in court.”

Dhillon “decimated” the Civil Rights Division, Young said, and called 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.”

Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel and the former chief of the Civil Rights Division during the Biden administration, said Dhillon “abdicated her responsibility to enforce our nation’s federal civil rights laws and destroyed the crown jewel of the Justice Department.”

Clarke said Dhillon “abandoned cases, purged the work force and weaponized the Division to target institutions to achieve illegitimate, partisan goals,” and that the NAACP would demand that Dhillon’s replacement “respect the agency’s sacred mission, enforce the law fairly, and protect our civil rights.”