Harmeet Dhillon has stepped down as head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, becoming the first senior Trump administration official to leave following the Democrats’ “blue wave” in the midterm elections.
Dhillon, a former Republican Party official and attorney who represented President Donald Trump’s campaign, was selected by Trump for the position after his 2024 election victory.
During her time at the DOJ, she redirected the civil rights division away from its traditional emphasis on protecting vulnerable groups and toward conservative priorities. More than three-quarters of the division’s lawyers left during her tenure.
After her resignation became public, Dhillon said she had submitted it roughly three weeks before the election and had not been forced out.
Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, “asked me to please wait until after the midterms,” Dhillon told Fox News.
Democrats won the House and Senate by wide margins on Tuesday and have vowed to launch sweeping investigations into the Trump administration.
The DOJ’s civil rights division is expected to rank high among their targets, putting Dhillon in line to face intense questioning on Capitol Hill.
Under Dhillon, the department pursued key administration priorities, including expanding gun rights and dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Attorney Harmeet Dhillon speaks at a Turning Point USA event in 2022. Dhillon became the first senior Trump official to resign after Democrats’ historic victories in the House and Senate
Harmeet Dhillon, then-Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, shared a photo with President Donald Trump. Dhillon resigned from the DOJ on Thursday
The division was also assigned responsibility for election-integrity initiatives, including efforts to prosecute illegal voting operations.
The agency faced scrutiny after delaying the opening of a civil rights investigation into the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Democrats are expected to examine those shootings, along with the DOJ’s and Department of Homeland Security’s immigration operations, as part of their investigations next year.
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Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed Dhillon’s departure following her 19 months at the Justice Department.
“She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor,” Blanche said.
Dhillon is set to return to her California-based private practice, Dhillon Law Group. Her brother, Mandeep Singh Dhillon, has overseen the firm since she joined the DOJ.
A group of former Justice Department officials told the Daily Mail in a statement Thursday that Dhillon had “decimated” the civil rights division’s more than 70-year mandate.
“Harmeet Dhillon has been the most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history,” Stacey Young, executive director of the Justice Connection, said Thursday.
Kalshi, the online prediction market, is taking bets on who could be the next Trump administration official to leave.
Special Presidential Envoy Ric Grenell is considered the most likely candidate.
Kalshi users put the probability of his departure at about 60 percent, ahead of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at 51 percent.
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles ranks third, with an estimated 47 percent chance of leaving.
Wiles, the powerful White House chief of staff, has privately been blamed for the Republicans’ midterm losses, the Daily Mail previously reported.
Yet she appears to have pulled back from the brink.
Several insiders say she is expected to survive the coming White House “purge” by employing a very Trumpian form of “4D chess”—pitting the president’s leading Cabinet officials, particularly Vance and Rubio, against one another while quietly securing her own position.