Attorney General Todd Blanche accepted Harmeet Dhillon’s resignation as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on Thursday, the first senior DOJ exit after Democrats flipped Congress.
Blanche announces the departure
Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote on X at 12:38 p.m. ET Thursday that he had accepted Dhillon’s resignation. Blanche said she led the Civil Rights Division “with conviction the past 18 months,” defended “the civil liberties of every American,” and enforced the law “without fear or favor.” He thanked her for public service and wished her success ahead.
The Civil Rights Division is the Justice Department unit that enforces federal civil-rights laws — rules that protect voting, equal treatment, and other liberties.
Dhillon says it was her choice
According to Fox News, Dhillon said she was not pushed out. “I wasn’t asked to resign. I resigned three weeks ago, and Susie asked me to please wait until after the midterms,” she told Fox, referring to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
She said she told Wiles three weeks before Election Day that she had “accomplished everything” she came to do and wanted to return to private practice. She submitted a formal resignation letter on Nov. 5. “My decision, my choice… It’s time,” she said. She also said, “We changed it, and that’s what we came here to do. And it’s done.”
Fox reported she was nominated in December 2024 and sworn in in April 2025 after Senate confirmation — about 18 to 19 months in the post.
Priorities and the midterm backdrop
Democrats flipped the House and Senate in the Nov. 3 midterms. Axios called Dhillon the first senior-level DOJ official to step down after that blue sweep. Blanche’s acceptance lands in the early lame-duck period, even as Dhillon frames the timing as a White House request to wait, not a post-election ouster.
According to Fox, her agenda focused on DEI and race-conscious policies, religious discrimination, transgender sports, Second Amendment issues, and election integrity. DEI means diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. She said she recruited more than 130 lawyers. Reports cited by Fox also noted roughly 300 attorneys leaving during Trump’s second term. Axios noted election monitors in all 50 states.
Critics call the tenure destructive
CBS News, citing critics of her record, said more than 75% of staff departed and that priorities shifted toward gun rights, curbing DEI at universities, and opposing transgender civil-rights protections. CBS also reported dismissed consent decrees — court-enforced reform deals with police or other agencies — plus 31 lawsuits aimed at voter rolls with 27 losses, and a record of more than 1,000 midterm monitors.
Stacey Young, a former Civil Rights Division attorney with the Justice Connection, told CBS that Dhillon was “the most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history” and said “Dhillon decimated it.”
As of early Thursday afternoon Eastern time, no public response from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries or Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer had appeared on X.
Sources: Fox News · CBS News · Axios · Todd Blanche on X
