Top DOJ official and longtime Trump ally Harmeet Dhillon resigns

Harmeet Dhillon -- a conservative firebrand lawyer and longtime ally of President Donald Trump -- has resigned from her role leading the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Thursday.

"Today, I accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division with conviction the past 18 months," Blanche said in a social media post. "She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor. The Department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors."

The departure makes Dhillon the first high-ranking Trump ally to resign from the administration in the wake of Tuesday’s midterm elections, though sources say her exit was long expected after Trump privately expressed frustrations over a growing number of embarrassing court losses for the division under Dhillon’s leadership.

In a post on X, Dhillon thanked Trump for the opportunity and said her office "ushered in the downfall of illegal DEI, we fought to protect women and girls’ sports, and so much more."

Dhillon oversaw a complete reshaping of the division’s priorities to advance Trump’s agenda, from rolling back consent agreements with police departments around the country, a series of probes targeting elite universities, and an unbroken string of defeats in dozens of lawsuits filed against states pressuring officials to hand over their voter rolls.

The office also saw an unprecedented exodus of hundreds of career attorneys during Dhillon’s tenure, with an estimated 75% departing as of earlier this year according to staffing numbers provided to Congress.

Kristen Clarke, NAACP general counsel and a former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Biden administration, said in a statement after the announcement that Dhillon had "abdicated her responsibility to enforce our nation’s federal civil rights laws and destroyed the crown jewel of the Justice Department."

"Instead of protecting the civil rights of all Americans, she abandoned cases, purged the work force and weaponized the Division to target institutions to achieve illegitimate, partisan goals," she said.

Before joining Trump's second administration, Dhillon worked as one of Trump's personal attorneys and aided his failed legal efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and represented Trump against the House Jan. 6 committee.

She challenged then-Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel in 2023 after the party's underperformance in the 2022 midterm elections, and was backed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and some Fox News personalities, among others.

Dhillon said her challenge to McDaniel was fueled by three main concerns, including "an inexplicable failure" by RNC leadership to take advantage of mail-in and early voting to the full extent that it's allowed -- even as Trump and some other Republicans told voters to embrace in-person ballots.